This Roller Coaster We Call Life

Life.

(O.K., I can already hear my high school English teacher screaming at me that "one word does not a sentence make!) I beg to differ, dear Ms. Hofstetter.

I have to think that everyone around me is probably amused at one time or another by the degree of naïveté that I bring to the table! I guess that is a trait I inherited from my maternal grandmother. She never got jokes, but she pretended she did, and the expressions on her face as she tried to "get it" were funnier than the jokes themselves! I can't help being naïve, and I am actually a little proud that I don't have certain life experiences that would probably cure me of my "condition."

But I digress. Being naïve causes one to see life through glasses that not all wear. As a result, I think that sometimes I feel things more deeply than those whose glasses were shattered years ago.

Having said all that, I guess I am just constantly amazed at the highs and lows of our everyday lives. One minute, everything can be so good. The next, it can go to so very bad.

Nanny (my maternal grandmother) would tell me, if she were still with us, that a lot of life consists in how you look at things. And I guess she would be right about that. Do we see the glass as half-empty or half-full? ( I used to gag every time someone pulled out that analogy!)

When Tim, my husband, slipped on the ice on our porch and fell two days before Christmas, I have to tell you, my glass looked pretty empty! I mean, after all, I had just had my neck cut open eight days earlier, and nothing was done towards Christmas. (Big "I-told-you-so" for Mr. Great-at-the-last-minute!) My grandmother had just died, it was colder than kraut, and I had five sets of little and not-so-little eyes looking up at me (or down at me in the case of our six-foot-plus sons) silently inquiring as to whether Santa was going to make it this year or not!

But things always have a way of working out, and this year was no exception. Four frantic hours in the local mini-mall in the last possible shopping minutes til Christmas yielded sufficient booty to ensure that children were not going to be emotionally scarred this year.

However, much to my surprise, Providence has once again provided in a time when we seemed to rolling clear out of control on the ride of life.

I did not anticipate the benefits that would come from Tim having to work from home. He has gotten to spend "quality time" with the girls for the first time in a long time. Not having to drive three hours a day to and from work left him with some time to see all the cute things he usually misses. To anyone who knows Tim and how he loves his daughters, you would know what this has meant to him.

I have gotten to see the goodness of God in allowing Tim to heal from his injuries without surgery so far! Having torn all three of the major ligaments around his knee, this recovery seemed near to impossible in the beginning. I have also gotten to see the resolute strength that is in my husband--a quality which I have always admired in him. "The Little Engine That Could" has nothing on him.

And who could have foreseen that the transmission would die suddenly on one of our vehicles, leaving us in the dreaded "one-car" scenario---not too handy when your husband works an hour and a half away. Tim's fiasco has bought us time to deal with another of the wonderful little surprises that keep the gray matter perking, trying to find solutions to the puzzle we call "our life."

So I begin yet another day. I inhale, I embrace, I savor the up moments. I dread, I deplore, I despise the downs. I know that the "downs" probably refine us more than do the "ups," but the humanity in me cries out,"Let this cup pass." I pray for strength to endure more gracefully, to give thanks more abundantly, and to trust more perfectly, for after all, there is nothing more exhilarating than a good roller coaster ride!