The Ups and Downs of life...

I've been thinking about a lot of different stuff over the last few days. Yesterday was my birthday and as I reached the 20-year mark, I reflected on everything that has happened in the last year. I wrote this in my journal so I'll save the time of rewriting it for now. Anyways, I think that, especially this past year, I'm seeing how life can change so quickly. A specific example from working at the summer camp I'm at humored me a bit. The owner of the camp commented me on doing a great job with the fencing program, at which I blushed in aw-shucks gratitude, but just a few days later the same owner was upset that I wasn't doing a good enough job supervising the campers. Now I don't mean in any way to offend either the owner or the camp but this just highlights a principle I've been seeing more recently. If you are thanked you can just as soon be shunned, if you are thrilled you can just as soon be disappointed, if you are settled and comfortable you can just as soon be scattered and displaced. These circumstances can all be reversed to give a positie connotation but the same example holds true. Life changes. It will change. It's very nature keeps us on the edge of our seats wondering what could happen next. I feel that I've come to the point in my life where I've stopped trying to figure out what could happen next. This potentially produces two different thought patterns in my thinking: either I can live life unplanned, spur of the moment, apathetically or I can do my best, trusting that the Lord will see it through and work out all the details that I can't possibly predict. I try for the latter option but far too often my thoughts stray toward the former and its counterpart of worry. I guess that it has just led me to realize that I need to depend on the Lord for all that tommorow holds and stop biting my nails or giving up because I have no idea what lies ahead. I pray that the Lord will help me to trust Him more and more in the days to come.

In Christ, Josh Gilbert