And Yo Again

One day I have a free lift ticket, fresh powder, friends to enjoy it with, and a broken credit card machine that results in free lunch - just about perfect; everything in my favor. The next day my flight is cancelled because of snow, I get stuck in traffic for three hours, and I have to battle with airline customer service associates to recoup my lost ticket. How does life go from being so great to so disappointing so quickly. Maybe my lesson in this is not to let things affect me so much. But honestly I don't think I let things bother me more than they should. It's reasonable to be disappointed about not getting to take a much anticipated and much needed vacation. It's also reasonable to feel good about the system working in my favor to get me a free day of skiing on fresh powder. What I can't allow myself to do anymore is extrapolate those reasonable emotions into irrational conclusions about my life and the universe in general. I've often resorted to placing all my frustrations and disappointments into a general "the entire universe is set against me" category. It's strange. Sometimes I am unbelievably lucky and other times I am incredibly unfortunate. Some days I feel like every force is set against me, and some days it seems like the cosmos are set in my favor. At one point I would have described it as spiritual warfare. I still believe this on some level. I've reached a point in my spiritual journey where I can't quite trust that there is anything working in my favor. Maybe that's where I've been wrong the whole time. Perhaps my idea of God has been so ego-centric that I really believed He was working for my benefit. In reality though, even though God loves me and wants me to succeed, He is working for his own glory, and His idea of my success is probably very different from my own goals. I want to believe God has a plan for my life and that it is ultimately better than any plan I could have for myself. It's hard to keep believing that when nothing makes sense.

I was driving back from Colorado Springs on Friday after my flight had been cancelled and I was so upset. I had really been looking forward to seeing one of my closest friends, meeting her boyfriend, and just enjoying her company for the weekend in a really fun location. When the weather interrupted my plans I sunk into what has become an all-too-common mindset of "why doesn't anything work out for me?" I was driving through a dense fog about 25 mph behind miles of traffic. The fog was so thick and the daylight was starting to fade, limiting visibility to the tail lights immediately in front of me. I pulled of at an exit to get some coffee and as soon as I pulled onto the side road I was confronted by a "Road Closed" sign. This is my life lately. I have nice diversions and good things happen to remind me that I'm not alone after all. But it seems that at every turn I'm met with a "Road Closed" sign. The fog is so thick that I can't see where I am and the darkness is rolling in all around. I'm looking for an exit but all I can see are the tail lights in front of me, keeping me on the road. I hope that when I get to my exit I can still see well enough not to miss it.