When the going gets tough

Its cuti-cuti time again. As usual the days have flown past so fast we are now in mid 2012 already. For once I am totally free of appointments, engagements n wat-not activities I normally sign up for during school hols. This time I even skipped church family camp, an event I have always gone for. I didnt sign up this year partly becoz the kids weren't keen, so wats a family camp without family, right? The other reason was in view of my coming trip to Korea prayer mountain in July. Yet one more reason was that I simply wanted to rest at home for once instead of running around like mad dog. Honestly I was tired. Certain things have happened in so short a time. I remember watching a show about a man whose life kept going back in time, instead of growing older, he kept growing younger by the day, till he went back into being just a baby. In this season of my life I think how nice it would be if i could just be a baby and let someone else take care of me. Babies don't have worries, best of all, babies are just loved. Problems start when babies grow up.
But then again, who am I to expect a problem-free existence on this earth? Jesus clearly told us, "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33); thank God He didn't just leave it hanging there...He added, " But take heart! I have overcome the world." Take heart. means to be of good courage, of good cheer, and overcome conveys the idea of conquering or victory. But how does one 'take heart' when the heart itself is sick? How to smile when inside you are crying? Apparently you can. At least that's what a dear fren who treated me a belated bday ice-cream said of me. She said i have a most beautiful smile; her words came at a most appropriate time - I have been asking God the usual questions of an impatient child... "How long more, God, how long must this go on, how long more are You going to allow the situation to get worse?" The only other time I remembered agonising this much over this question was when I was facing a dying husband. Day after day nite after nite, my heart would be muttering it, even when I prayed or read the Bible. I didn't know much then, I should know better now. One would have thought after 10 years walking with a faithful God, I really should know better than to ask this type of questions - again. I can imagine God shaking His head tenderly at me now..
"Child, after so long, haven't you learnt?" "Sorry Lord, I thought I had learnt.... I guess I gotta re-learn it again...and again..and again, since the troubles of this world will never stop anyway. So when the troubles hit, I will remember what You said,  "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace." 
And I guess I do have His peace, since my fren tells me I am still smiling...beautifully some more..., tho she has absolutely no idea of the inner cries of my heart.
I am learning (again) that it's one thing to say I trust and believe God to work in every situation for good (I do). But it's another to live it out, looking on a bad situation, seeing it get seemingly worse and not being able to do a darn thing about it, especially when it concerns people close to your heart, people you love and care about. And that's when the truth hits - you really have no control over life. The grand illusion of humanity is that we think we are so totally 'in charge'. We are not. Someone said, we can't even draw a single breath unless God gives us another day of life today. Aptly did St Peter declare, 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?(Acts 4:25).  We refuse to believe or choose to ignore the "Sovereign Lord..who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them." Becoz we would rather believe the delusion that we are in charge of the universe, when actually what we have is simply the freedom to choose how to live the lives that have been granted to us. Even then we make wrong choices and mess up! Worse, becoz we think we are in charge, we don't wanna admit we need help and we reject the very Person who can and wants to help.
I have learnt to recognize its ok to be weak, in fact its imperative I admit I am weak, to acknowledge I am not superwoman, supermom, super anything, that I don't have answers to all the questions of life, and that I need Someone bigger than me, bigger than my problems, bigger than the universe. If I don't admit that need, He can't help me, He will let me go my own way, becoz He honors the freedom He Himself gave me to choose His way. But His way is not an easy or painless way - it leads to the cross; it involves death - of myself, so that He can take over and turn around...my problems, my life. As much as He requires it of me, He went thru the same way to prove that it works...Jesus died, and rose again. I need look no further than the empty tomb.
I just need eyes to see beyond what things appear to be now, and know that He is faithful, even when I am faithless, and a heart that clings onto His promise that He is able to make all grace abound to me, so that in all things at all times, I will have all the grace that I need to overcome. I just need to relearn the lesson - Grace enables me to smile...beautifully, even when, especially when the going gets tough - I just need to call Abba, Father...
"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" 2 Cor. 12:9-10