Life is Hard...Deal with it

Lately life never seems to just be - it seems like there is always something going wrong...no matter how minor it might be.  Last night for example - I went on my computer to make a playlist on my itunes because I hadn't done so in awhile and I haven't updated my ipod in awhile.  Well, it appears that when my computer was rebuilt last month or sometime during its crazyness when it kept acting up during November, about 1/3 of my song files were deleted from my computer somehow.  This of course made me quite upset and my attitude the whole evening became sour as I tried to fix it to no avail. 

Then today, I thought I would have a pretty relaxing Saturday - Sam would be gone skiing all day and I would be home relaxing - of course my "relaxing" would include studying for my classes that begin next week.  Then this afternoon, Lucy, our older dog of 4 years, began throwing up - she continued to do so for over an hour.  I was really worried about her and I took her to vet where I spent about 2.5 hours waiting for them to look at her, take an xray of her abdomin, give her meds, and then give her fluids for dehydration.  It was not a relaxing afternoon as I had hoped for.  It is funny how dogs basically feel like children to us most of the time - I wonder if this will change in the future when I actually, God willing, have children that are not dogs. 

To try to uplight my mood, I started my study of Ecclesiastes.  I read the first three verses and then read the first chapter of Warren Wiersbe's commentary called Be Satisfied.  The first three verses start out so depressed and solemn calling life simply "vanity of vanities" meaning that life is futile and worthless.  But the commentary pointed out that this would not be final conclusion that the author came to by the end of the book of Ecclesiastes.  The author is assumed to be Solomon, although the author never comes right out and says who he is.  Solomon had everything anyone could desire - he had wisdom that he had asked God for early in his life, he had wealth, he was king, he had everything.  But as he grew older he turned away from God and turned to false gods...and in doing so he became depressed and fell deeper into this - thus beginning life is just vanity of vanities.  Solomon showed that no matter how much wealth, education, or social prestige you have, life without God is futile.  This does not mean that if you are following God bad things won't happen - Solomon is basically trying to say through the book that we can't act like bad things won't happen because it is a certainty that they will, we must face life honestly, but look at it from God's perspective and from an eternal perspective instead of from our earthly human views. 

So, we will have bad stuff happen, whether it is as small as losing music files, as medium as a dog getting sick, or as large as losing a loved one, life is going to be hard.  We just have to realize that and take it.  But we need to also realize that God is there for us, guiding us through life, and there to lean on when we feel weak and destroyed by the world.  We need to keep in mind his eternal perspective and know that the time we spend on this earth is so minimal compared to eternity's time.