I forget that sometimes. When t’m in the dark passages of my story, I forget that the end has already been written. I forget that God has the final say on the final page.

It’s like re-reading a favorite book. You get to the point where the outlook is bleakest and the heroes are outnumbered. You think that there’s no way they can ever hope to win. Then you remember the end. You remember that the story doesn’t end in ashes and defeat.

Your story has a happy ending if you have said yes to God’s story. Your pain won’t have the final word. Neither will your mistakes, your poor choices, your past, your wounds, your scars. Jesus and Jesus alone has the final word in your life.

“I always regarded the death of my husband, Jim, as the worst possible thing that could happen…but you know what? When the worst thing you could ever imagine, happens, there is something that was not there in your imaginings—and that is the grace of God” (Elisabeth Elliott).

I’m guilty of playing the worst case scenario game. You know. The one where you imagine the absolute worst outcome of any particular circumstance. What would you do? How would you react? How would you manage? Could you survive?

Usually, there’s one element missing in my version of the worst case scenario — God. I see me and I see the problem, but I don’t see God. I see myself having to figure it out and navigate the choppy waters.

But when the worst happens, which I have found is very rarely, that’s when you discover in reality what you knew up to that point in theory — the grace of God. It’s one thing to pray about it and to talk about it and to sing about it and yet another to experience it in real time. It’s one thing to read about someone else’s encounter with God’s grace and another to have your own Damascus road showdown.

I think about Elisabeth Elliott and how young she was when she lost Jim. She was in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from everything familiar, reeling from the loss of her lifetime companion. Yet that’s where she met the lovingkindness of God in a way that she never could have in any other scenario.

You can talk all day long about how you believe God is with you through the trials and dark nights and pain, but you never really understand it until you’re in the valley of the shadow of death yourself.

I swear, these days it seems like a week lasts about two days. I feel like last Thursday was yesterday and here we are about to embark on another Friday. Not that I’m complaining. It’s just hard to keep up sometimes.

I’m ready for my customary sleep-in Saturday. I’m ready to turn off the alarm clock and not have to wake up at the undignified and ungodly hour of 5 am. I’m ready to sit on the couch and drink my coffee and just be.

Also, a week from today is July 1. Next thing you know it will be July 4. Then August. Then fall will be here. Then it will be time to decorate the tree and sing Christmas carols. Falalala-what? I haven’t even bought any presents yet. I’m not ready for any of this.

So I think I’ll just enjoy my Friday, drink my coffee-flavored sugar milk, and not worry about anything but being in the moment.

To me, foot cramps are the worst. There’s almost nothing worse than being all comfy in bed, only to flex your foot wrong and have it cramp. For me, the only way to get rid of a foot cramp is to climb out of bed and walk it off.

Thankfully, foot cramps are rare for me, but any foot cramp is one too many in my book. Having to get out of bed for any reason after getting settled in is not a fun occasion.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, foot cramps are far from the worst possible outcome. In fact, they’re more of an inconvenience than anything. But in that moment when you feel your foot cramp, it does seem like the world is coming to an end.

Anne LaMott once said that bananas are the only known cure for existential dread. Apparently, they also work well for preventing foot cramps. Maybe I need to get back to eating more bananas.

Recently, I was feeling thrifty, so I trekked over to Goodwill. One of my discoveries was a copy of Gregg Allman’s autobiography, entitled My Cross to Bear. That in itself would have been enough, since I am a big fan of the Allman Brothers Band and Gregg’s solo output.

When I opened up to the title page, I found Gregg’s signature, with the inscription “To Little Martha, Gregg Allman.” I also discovered that the book is a first edition. That was completely unexpected.

That’s the joy of thrifting. You never know what you’ll find. Sometimes, you get nothing. Sometimes, you find good stuff. But on rare occasions, you find treasures.

That’s life. If you keep your eyes open and stay in the moment, you never know what you’ll find. If you’re not so focused on getting to the weekend, you might discover hidden treasure buried in the middle of the week. It could be a conversation with a friend, a hug from a family member, a breathtaking sunset, or words of wisdom from one of your children. It could be a memory from someone you hold dear in your heart who is no longer with you.

So your instructions are these: 1) live your life intentionally as much as possible, 2) pay attention to the world around you, and 3) be amazed. You truly never know what God will show you next.

So much of life is joy mingled with sorrow. There is no escaping it. The world we live in is a beautiful but broken creation, having lost much of its original design but still bearing faint traces of glory.

I think about this day four years ago when I lost my little cat Lucy. I don’t pretend to compare my loss with those who have lost parents or spouses or children. Still, it is a loss. June 21, 2017 still remains one of the saddest days in my memory.

Then nine days later, I went to the Williamson County Animal Shelter and got chosen by a feisty little tortie kitten who later became Peanut. The memory of that day brings me joy.

I have to remind myself that pure joy can’t be found in this life. Only at the consummation of all things at Jesus’ return will my joy be complete. Every happy memory is tainted with a touch of sadness.

It’s the now and not yet of the Kingdom of God. It’s like seeing a dirty reflection in a mirror, knowing one day we shall see Him face to face with undimmed eyes.

So we wait and hope with joy and certainty as we say, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

“The fact is, I need God to help me love God. And if I need His help to love Him, a perfect being, I definitely need His help to love other, fault-filled humans. Something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. The Holy Spirit has to move in our lives” (Francis Chan).

The older I get, the more I realize the truth of this. The more I see how innately selfish I am, as I suspect most of us do if we’re honest. Left to myself, my greatest love would be for myself.

But thankfully, God doesn’t leave me alone. God never at any time or in any place for any reason leaves anyone alone who calls to Him in faith.

The truth of the matter is that I can love God or anyone else at all because God first loved me and showed me how. Better yet, I can love with the same love that God loved me with. I love with God’s love.

I’m also thankful that God’s love for me isn’t the benign and generic kind of indulgent enable-ism that passes for love in this culture. He knows me by name and loves me specifically for who I am as I am with a love that purifies and refines and transforms me into something more like the Beloved.

That’s love. That’s how God loves me. That’s how I’m to love others with a view to their transformation into the likeness and image of the God who loved me first.

“The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love’, and look on things as if man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. ‘Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created’ [Revelation 4:11]. We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest ‘well pleased’. To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable. We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He could reconcile Himself to our present impurities—no more than the beggar maid could wish that King Cophetua should be content with her rags and dirt, or a dog, once having learned to love man, could wish that man were such as to tolerate in his house the snapping, verminous, polluting creature of the wild pack. What we would here and now call our ‘happiness’ is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy”

I’ve heard that sometimes when you can’t find the words to pray, you can borrow the words from someone else. That’s one of the main reasons that I’m a fan of prayer books and liturgies. It helps to be able to pray the words of saints who have gone before and walked the same road that we’re walking now. It helps to hear your own thoughts and desires expressed for you better than you could ever have said it yourself.

Best of all, even when there are absolutely no words at all — only tears and sighs and groans — the Father knows because the Spirit of God translates those longings too deep for words into psalms and hymns to God. You are always heard.

For me, it was finding toothpaste on sale that got me excited. Also, it makes me happy when I find my favorite Old Spice deodorant at Target. Dish soap? Not so much.

I read somewhere that being an adult means going to bed when you don’t want to and also getting up when you don’t want to. it’s when you sneeze too hard and pull a muscle. Adulting is highly overrated.

Some days, I’d give just about anything for my old blanket fort and a coloring book. And maybe one of those ginormous 64-crayon sets. But mostly I just need a nap.