“Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitudes toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it.” ~ Chuck Swindoll
Today, I was thinking about a small, but loaded two-word phrase – “REAL LIFE”. What does real life mean to me? Well, I discovered that looking each word up in the dictionary made it difficult to describe, since both had more than 15-28 different definitions.(Wow!) So, I just kind of meditated for a few minutes on the phrase and considered what real life means to me. A few words that came to mind
- Imperfect
- Transparent
- Difficult
- Harsh
- “A daily joy struggle . . . a battle between grudgery & gratitude.” (words from Ann Voskamp)
- . . .it’s not really what we make of it. . .but what we make of God (our relationship with Him)
- An endless cycle of mistakes and graces
- Living forgiven
- Ugly-beautiful
I stressed the last one because that really does describe it to a “T”. Real life can be pretty ugly most days. If it weren’t for God’s grace and mercy, life would stay pretty ugly. But because He chose to die for each of us, life is beautiful! Yes, it is! Even when it’s not good, I can find the beauty through Him. When my focus is on my Lord and Savior, “I can do all things through Him, who gives me strength.”(Philippians 4:13)
A lot of people would like to have everyone believe that their life is perfect. When we talk to different people we come in contact with throughout the day (in person, on the phone, or on the internet), we usually don’t talk about the REAL things they are struggling with or see their “real life” hurts. Sometimes we tend to think we are the only ones that have it rough, but in reality (real life), we all have hardships and live the consequences from bad decisions in our lives. Nobody’s life is perfect. I think that’s the biggest thing I want everyone to know from my blog. . . we all hurt. We all have ugly parts of our lives. But I hope that those who need encouragement can feel they are accepted and understood here; that there is hope for a better day; that through Christ there is a beautiful side of ugly.
linking on over to;
Made to Crave at "A Journey of Love"
