It's not your imagination...

Life is HARD...

It's a common thread running through all my conversations with females lately...  Life is HARD.   After that evaluation is the question "Is it supposed to be this hard?" 

Marriage is hard
Children are hard
Friendships are hard
SAHM is hard
WM is hard
Homeschool is hard
School is hard
Diet is hard
Exercise is hard


Holding is all together is hard, and we all ask the ???, and then we think I must be doing something wrong if it's this hard.  The truth is it's just hard.  I will be the first to admit that I'm not doing it perfectly or even well, but I think even if I did everything "right" it would still be hard.  I'm also beginning to see that HARD CAN BE GOOD.  Gasp.  Yes I said that. 

Although my life is exactly the one I asked God for, it is  hard.  I really should have paid attention in 8th grade when I was jamming out to Poison, they knew:

Every Rose has it's thorns
Just like every night has it's dawn,
Just like every cowboy has his sad, sad song
Every Rose has it's thorns...

Now that's some wisdom right there Poison.  I appreciate them breaking it down for me.  Every good thing has something hard, but when we focus on the hard thing It makes life hardER.  When our focus is on how hard marriage is we miss out on the beauty that is Two becoming One Flesh.  When we focus on how hard raising children is we miss out on the beauty that is being a Mother. 

We can always find something to complain about.  We can always be bogged down, overwhelmed, and unhappy...  OR we could look at the Rose.  We can ponder the beauty in our situations.  We can practice a heart of gratitude. 

We can also be thankful in all things.  If you have a relationship with God you can know that the hard things are FOR YOUR GOOD.   We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works that He before ordained for us to do.  He is working on us.  He has a goal and that goal is to conform us to the image of His son Jesus...  and that my friends is a very difficult task.  We are naturally selfish people, but God wants a people who reflect His heart.  We can see the heart of God through Jesus His son.  He reveals God to the world and we are supposed to reflect that.  So, God uses all the hard stuff in our lives to mold, shape, prune, refine us until we reflect Christ and that is more often than not done through hardship and suffering.  

The awesome thing is that God is for us.  God is with us.  God is going to redeem all things and He makes all things new.    It's hard because we are imperfect and that's not going to change.  It's hard because we want everything to be easy.  It's hard because most of the time we only ever change through hardship.  It's hard because if it wasn't we would rely on ourselves and not depend on God.  It's hard because God wants us to seek him.  It's hard because we would NEVER appreciate anything that came easy.

It's also BEAUTIFUL.  This life is beautiful.   If we can accept that it is hard and that's ok then we really begin to have joy and peace.    We can rejoice in the Lord no matter what.  We can filled with wonder and praise because we know that there is purpose in our pain.  It's not wasted and that makes it all worth it.