I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Nothing is guaranteed in life. There is no warranty that says your life will be easy and you will get everything you want. Life is a gift from God and I believe that you will get out of life what you put into it.

There have been times in my life that I have been really upset at the way things have happened. There have been times when I've been angry with God. I was especially angry when he took my Dad away from me when I needed him the most. I had just fled an abusive marriage and was going to come out to the Midwest to be near to Mom and Dad. A month before I was planning to move Dad was planting a bush and keeled over and was dead before he hit the ground of a massive heart attack. I couldn't understand why God would take someone wonderful like my Dad and leave my abusive husband alive.

It took a long time for me to forgive God but one day I realized that God would have wanted someone good like my Dad near him and not someone like my ex. I grew much stronger as a person because I had to face my problems without Dad's guidance. I found out that I was a lot stronger then I realized. I have used that new found strength to come and take care of my strong willed mother.

God doesn't promise us that everything will be easy. He does promise that he will always be there for us and will give us the strength to overcome difficulties. I feel sorry for friends who are atheists because they have turned their backs on the greatest source of strength there is, the strength that comes from belief in a higher power.

I can only shake my head in disbelief at these so called preachers who attribute to God all sorts of hatred for other human beings. Jesus said "The greatest commandment is this that thou shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, thy whole soul, and thy whole mind and the second is like unto this thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." No qualifiers. He didn't say thou shalt love thy neighbor providing he is white Anglo-Saxon Protestant upper middle class conservative Republican heterosexual. He said thou shalt love thy neighbor period. If we are made in God's image then all of us regardless of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex or sexual orientation are made in his image and it is wrong to harbor prejudice against any man who is different from us. We are all God's creatures and he loves us in spite of our failings.

My life hasn't always been the way I have wanted it to be but I  have worked hard to make it the best that it can be. I do what I can to help others and in doing so I have found a serenity within me that gets me through the hard times. God never promised me a rose garden but he promised me he would always be there for me if I had the wisdom to ask.