Finding an Atlas in Life

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 When I was high-school-age or younger, I thought the best way to approach (or, rather, receive) difficulties in life was to take it all at once, and then you're home free for the rest of your life.

No. Bad idea. If all of my trials came at me altogether as if they were the worst searchlight to ever locate a human being, I would crumple and burn. I believe my childhood logic was only taking into account the troubles that had happened to me so far, which were mostly non-fatal illnesses and school-related worries.

I hadn't considered such things as conflict at work, or being overworked, or having (as I do now) no work. Logically, it's impossible to experience all of those work concerns simultaneously--how does one have conflict at a job if there is no job?--but even if there were no paradoxes, the "one-and-done" trial by all-existing-elements would not succeed. I'm defining success in trials as the ability to get back up after being knocked down, and it's awful hard to get back up when flattened by all the weight of your world, all at once.

In the past 3 weeks, my life can feel rather flattened. Pandemic. Protests. Human brutality. Migraines. Anxiety. No job security. No job. No family nearby. No friends that should come nearby. No cat (Mark would count that as a blessing, but I find cats mysteriously distracting). Depression. Dwindling resolve. etc etc.

It may not help that I'm reading a book on the Russian-version of the Holocaust right now.

But then I think: There is a Supreme Being. Life is not pointless. I am not alone. And if I dig deep enough down inside me, I can find that I don't even need to conquer my problems to know that God loves me. Think on it: if I am given the strength to overcome, I will see the hand of God in my life; but if I crumple and cannot recover, well, God is still God, and that makes my life more meaningful than a blip of consciousness that just happened to be.

And that is exactly the conviction that can make me un-squashable. 

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