Listen to your life

It is so very easy to get bogged down in the messiness of life, to focus on what is wrong with us, with others, with the world. We lose sight of the sun because of all those persistent clouds.

The remedy for that is not to deny our hardships, to ignore the fact that dark clouds exist. The remedy is to refuse to let what is wrong with things sideline or obliterate the many signs of God’s ongoing grace in our lives.

Trying to bury our pain and adversity beneath a torrent of praise may sound pious enough, but it is in fact dangerous denial. Better to face the pain and adversity and recognise that God is still God and let that realisation lead to praise. Thanksgiving and praise arise out of recognising what is wrong and yet being alert to what remains right in the presence of the wrong. The Christian novelist Frederick Buechner puts it better than I can:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

Blessings
David Reay