Cheryl Dale – Climbing Out of the Valley

I have been complaining about the weather since the first promise of spring peeked its head around a tiny green sprout in my garden.  I’m cold most of the time so warm weather is my friend.  To me, spring is the first sign that I will soon stop shivering and huddling under a fleece blanket wherever I go.

The problem with spring is that it is only a distant hint of warmer weather.  The first tempting day of sunshine is followed by rain, wind, more wind and cool temps.  (To me cool is anything under 75 degrees.)  We start riding the motorcycle once the snow is gone and it’s a science for me to dress with enough layers.  I’m usually in an undershirt, shirt, shirt over that shirt, sweatshirt, wool sweater and leather coat.  I peel like an onion as the temperature rises.

This week we finally hit 80 degrees.  I can actually go without a sweater and I love it.  Of course, our crazy climate doesn’t settle on comfortable and stay there.  Today its 85, tomorrow is predicted for 100, Sunday 101 and Monday 104!  By Sunday I’ll be complaining again.  Too hot.

It just seems like that’s our pattern, doesn’t it?  Very few days or events or situations are perfect.  Once in a while a golden one comes along and we are content.  Most of the time it’s too stressful, too peaceful, too quiet, too loud, too short, too long, too dark, too light, too many people, too lonely – you get the message.  Contentment is not as easy to achieve as it should be.

Adam and Eve struggled with it in the Garden.  Everything was perfect except for that one little tree that was off limits.  The Israelites wrote the book on discontentment.  They rejoiced in their escape until they met their first obstacle.  They were thankful for manna until they got tired of it.  They were committed to God until tempted to worship something else.  David thought he was content until he saw Bathsheba. 

If every day were perfect, God would not have had to instruct us to give thanks in all circumstances (1 Thess 5:19). If every day were perfect, He would not have had to tell us not to fear or be dismayed (Is 41:10).  In fact, if everything were perfect all the time at least half the Bible could be eliminated.

Instead, God gives us a scattering of absolutely wonderful, beautiful, shimmering moments interspersed among the day to day challenges so we can recognize what a gift they are.  Sandwiched between life’s stumbling blocks they are streams in the desert, nourishment to a bruised heart, sunlight reaching through the cloud cover.  But – without the desert, the bruising and the cloud cover, we’d never recognize the gift.

I’m challenging myself to strike two expressions from my vocabulary this year.  “It’s too cold” and “It’s too hot.”  I’m doing it to remind myself to be content in all things. 

All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. Prov 15:15