Contrasts

To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heavens...

Life seems to be all about contrasts these days.

I am most in love with those who can frustrate me the most...willing to give up those I wish to hold closest...and desire to live by a standard by which I know it is just about impossible to live. I have found that it's easiest to just embrace the contrast...not fight it. (Lots of thoughts here...it's just that all of them are pre-verbal...)

Yesterday, I spoke to a dear friend who shared with me the horror and trauma of rushing her husband to the hospital that morning. He had a full-blown heart attack while in the car with her. He was rushed from the curb into the operating room, where the doctors discovered his main artery was completely blocked. He looks like he will be okay--we are so thankful.

Another call came in to our home at 12:30 am. A dear friend shared that he was on the way to the hospital with his wife. She was actively in labor, and contractions were just a few minutes apart. And so we wait...so thankful that a day that had begun with the possibility of a loss of life, ends with the expectation of the birth of a new one. Again,we are so thankful.

So I will continue to embrace the contrast...brilliantly described in one of my most favorite films, "Parenthood". Gil, played by Steve Martin, complains about the complication and difficult 'ups & downs' of life. Wherein Grandma wanders in and says:

You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it.