Patience is not my greatest virtue, it is tried to the inth degree when I'm driving. I have decided that I have more than one last nerve and there are some people and things that absolutely are determined to try my patience...they just don't always realize it.

One of the things I'm learning is that life usually doesn't make a lot of sense. Life is like driving, you are buzzing down the road, minding your own business, trying to reach your destination and wham! You hit a pot hole, someone pulls out in front of you, nearly backs into you, steals your parking slot, and the list goes on. It's how we deal with these little frustrations that makes the difference.

In the past few weeks we have faced a few things, my daughter had a flat on a very busy road, when I went out to get her my car wouldn't start, the mechanic thought it was my starter. Today she called at 9:30 am, that's 30 minutes before church starts...she's broke down, could be the transmission in our van...can anything else happen is floating through my mind...and then the voice of reason comes...through my wife of course...she could be in a ditch or dead, there may not have been anyone around to help her...but there was! And when I thought it was my starter it wasn't...there is a silver lining to the clouds that seem to be hovering over our automobiles.

Today I have felt the challenge, my thought process, my faith, my ability to quit analyzing and to believe that everything will work out...even though life is busy and inconvenient, and uncomfortable. What do we do with those scriptures like I Peter 4:12-13: Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner.(The Message) . James 1:2-4: Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don't try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. (The Message). Passages like these press us, they force us to ask the hard questions, like, "Am I really committed to God or am I just playing?" They ask us to look deep within our hearts to make sure that we love God, even when our roses have thorns! I know that in time all things will work out, but getting there is uncomfortable and irritating, can I praise God when I'm mad at life?

I think so...I just have to do it by faith:)