Though most days are really really good, sometimes life can be really really hard.  I am not usually one who likes to tell people my problems. But I am going to go ahead and say this has been a really hard week for me.  The week started out with an allergy to malaria prevention medicine causing large itchy whelps all over my body and my face to swell.  That finally went away and now seems to have settled into my joints and is really causing a lot of pain and swelling in my joints making it excruciating and very hard to walk or to even to just lay in bed. At the moment as I type this my fingers feel swollen and are stiff like rusty hinges. 

As I lied around feeling sorry for myself I typed the above and now as I type I have just learned of the attacks on Paris.  Suddenly I feel saddened and just sickened about life in general.  Here I was feeling sorry for myself and at the exact same time people who were just moments before enjoying life, out to have a good time are suddenly thrown in the middle of the worst day of their lives and for some today is even the end of their life.  Somehow my hard week now almost seems just way too easy.

And that easy feels also somehow like exhaustion… and exhaustion seems to now have became the emotion of the day… Exhausted in life’s struggles, exhausted in what is going on in the lives of people I love, and exhausted in what is going on in the world around me and I even feel exhausted about what is going on in the lives of those I don’t know.

I feel exhausted that no matter how hard I try to make sense of things, sometimes life is just not ever going to make total sense. It really exhausts me that no matter how pretty we try to make life, or that even though life really is pretty at times, life still can get really ugly at times too.

pause… deep breath…

Today life got really ugly.  For some today may be the ugliest of uglies and I felt like I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

I tried praying but somehow my prayers just felt lame, like they just weren’t ever going to be big enough to help in something so horrific.

Throughout my Christian walk there have been a small handful of times that I have felt just totally exhausted in life and today was one of those days.

Tonight as I tried to get comfortable in not only my own physical pain but also in the thoughts rolling around inside my head the next thing I knew ‘the song’ was playing on the radio.  I haven’t heard it in a really long long time and as it usually is when I hear this song I haven’t felt exhausted like this in a really long long time…

I find it interesting that at each of those times that I have felt totally exhausted there is this song that always ‘just happens’ to play out of nowhere on the radio whenever I feel the way I feel today.

“That’s What Faith Can Do” my reminder song was  playing on the radio almost as if on cue.

Once again God was reminding me that no matter what happens in life we can never give up. No matter how bad life gets He is still good.  He is always here in the middle of it all.  He is here in the struggle, in the midst of the chaos, and in the ugliest of uglies.  He is the hope and the strength we all need to hold on to always and especially when life exhausts us.

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I know that I can never begin to know the feelings of those who are caught in the middle of the horrific tragedy that took place in Paris today and I hope to not offend or hurt anyone by this post.  I hesitated at posting it because I really do not want to play off of this horrific act of violence.  It really makes no sense to me the craziness that seems to be going on around the world lately and I am truly very saddened by it.  My prayers go out to all those lives that were lost and to their families and to all who are involved. or affected in any way.  May God place his arms around Paris and also around this broken world and bring peace and comfort..  Lord this world needs you! I pray that people will turn to you instead of turning away from you and I pray that your light will shine out bright in the midst of this darkness. You are the strength we cling to! You Lord are our hope.