11/25/2007: "Turned Upside Down"

Everyone has there own belief of what life is supposed to be like. Whether it's some temporary plane of existence before going on to a higher world in an afterlife, or whether it's a continuous cycle of life brought about through instances of reincarnation or multiple lives. Of those that believe in God many state that it is in part, an experience full of challenges of which we are measured based upon, not winning or losing, but on how we played the game. The ultimate cliche proving itself true I guess, as it's a question of whether we were good or bad, made the right or wrong decisions, and more so many people believe that judgement is based upon how we are to others and does not really reflect our own personal choices for ourselves.

At any point however, you're life can flip completely upside down. Like the previous author mentioned in there message, it can happen to anyone of us, no matter how perfect or good our life seems it's as if at times the whole world can seem against us.

I know of a woman that has a degree in Real Estate, and the market has extremely dried up. Not only has it dried up but the market is viewing a possible recession with limited to no growth in our economic market in the United States. The woman in question was married, is now divorced, lost her job in real estate career, and post-divorce got a condo of which she is now selling, and expecting a 20,000 dollar loss in value, before moving back with her parents at the age of 26. I don't know of a better example of the world turning on it's axis in a person's life and truly bringing you back to the most humble of beginnings. Honestly, with a degree in hand, it's not like she made bad decisions in life, she did what every other college student did. Go through school, graduate, and then go to work in her career. The problem is her career is having trouble because people are losing their homes and the quantity of people buying homes is just not there.

So what happens is a time of breaking down completely and going back to where you started to try and figure out the next steps for you. Yet the problem is that those steps are all guesses as to what you should be doing. What does a Christian do in these times? When all of life says, "no, you can't win".

After going through my own traumatic periods, the last one was unique in that I just would not give up. I said to myself I'm going to get through this, no matter how much it hurt and just see what happens afterwards. I didn't do this to be arrogant or tough but to truly see if I could get through what God was throwing at me in my life, which is a common belief that we are only given what we can handle.

Well I cannot say whether that is true or not, I obviously did make it through and things are going better for me at this point. I wouldn't say life is spectacular by any means, but it is going alright and I appreciate what I do have. I am unfortunate like many to have my life flipped upside down and it's really hard for one to keep there faith during these times, much like the struggle Job went through. However, for those who do make it through or for those who are struggling, please let me remind you that things will not be bad forever and that God does love you, and then again, you never know when it's going to flip back.