Beautiful, perfect...

Is there such a thing as beautiful and perfect? I've been fighting off what my husband has had this week, the flu. Last night I felt rough. I curled up in my comfy pajamas and became one with my couch. Today, I've felt better, piddled with household chores and laundry, and watched sappy Christmas movies. Of course, in those movies everything ends perfectly. Their hair is beautiful, their clothes, the scenery is beautiful, and their lives are amazing. Money is never an issue for long and every ending is perfect.

Unfortunately, you turn off the TV, and perfect lives and reality isn't always beautiful and perfect. There are real struggles and ugliness. While watching a news program last night, the anchor was talking about the Christians targeted in the German Christmas Market. He asked the question of a guest commentator, "Why does God allow these things to happen?" Two reactions came to mind. 1) Why would you ask that when you know that the answer is not simple? and 2) Free will. The purposes and reasons why things happen the way they do is something I have struggled with many times. You see, God's free will allows us to make decisions. Don't get me wrong, His hand is on everything. EVERYTHING. However, He allows free will. We have a choice in how we act, what we do, when we see "the beautiful", the perfect plan, and when we don't follow His will or His purpose in our life.

Romans 5:3-5 states, "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope". When giving my testimony at our church in March of 2024, I stated I didn't always "glory" in suffering. Thinking back, sometimes I have wallowed in it. I have laid like a pig in the mud and rolled covering myself in self-pity. But even then, in the end, I would get up, shake off the dust, wash off the mud, and remember Paul in II Corinthians 9-10. "But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." There is the Perfect.

As a Christian in this world, we will have struggles. Someone made a comment to me yesterday about using this blog to "help heal my soul". I said, "we all heal daily, but I'm in a great place". Yes, Yes, I am! I'm in God's hands and His will.