light and momentary?

I have been known at times to be *a bit dramatic*.

I can hear the laughter ringing all the way from Minnesota. Let's just say it's hereditary.

Once again I am in a place where I'll never know the real cause of the intense emotions. But after a good morning of walking with a friend, her daughter, and my pup pups there I was. By the time Dave got home I was just resigned to the fact that some times there is just an infinite feeling sadness and no way to avoid it or overcome it. I saw a quote on my new friend Brooke's blog that she found on Courtney's blog (baby Ella has not made her appearance yet!).

"They say that time in heaven is compared to 'the blink of an eye' for us on this earth. Sometimes it helps me to think of my child running ahead of me through a beautiful field of wildflowers and butterflies; so happy and completely caught up in what he is doing that when he looks behind him, i'll already be there."

~Author Unknown (I edited to make it he's instead of she's)

It made me sad but with a side of hope and comfort. Hope that all this missing Sammy for the rest of my life will feel short and comfort in the fact that he's ok. As I continued with my afternoon and tried to not dwell in my sadness too much (FAIL - unless sitting and listening to sad music while staring into space for a couple hours = moving on), the phrase "light and momentary afflictions" popped into my head.

yyyyeeeaaahhhhhh. I knew that was scripture but I swear I scoffed out loud at all this being called "light" or "momentary". <---imagine big over exaggerated air quotes dripping with sarcasm here. And being in the shower at the time, the situation was not real conducive to Googling that phrase so I just started thinking about eternity. And wondered about the context of that scripture, thinking Paul probably wrote it while he was in jail or something crazy like that.

2 Corinthians 4:17 - For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

By itself that verse was hardly comforting...call it the selfishness of immediate gratification but I would rather have my baby now than "eternal glory" later, whatever that means anyway. With it's two immediate neighbor verses it came together for me, providing me with enough comfort to not climb into the dark hole that was attempting to swallow me.

2 Corinthians 4: 16-18 - Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

It helped me to be affirmed in the "outward wasting away", that's a nice way of putting how I felt yesterday and am tempted to feel every day. And yet I was being renewed even as I was feeling affirmed in the wasting away.

It's been a struggle to complete some of the tasks I was all fired up to do a couple days ago. It started with the zucchini bread being a bust, I didn't bake it long enough (I blame my oven, bake times are way longer than recipes call for lately). Then the rest of the recipes that I wanted to try were taunting me so I made myself complete them last night. There were some flowers that needed to get planted in front of our house and I finally made myself do it today. I'm glad I did it all. In the midst of these tasks it felt good and even better when they were done. I just lack motivation some days.

I tell myself it is ok. It is ok to be infinitely sad for a little bit. It is ok to lack motivation for anything but staring into space. Some days will have those moments. Maybe that's my tendency to lean toward the dramatic but I know those moments won't last forever. I know that lately when I can't find comfort, comfort seems to find me.