The Swamp. Hard Stuff.

I live in a swamp. OK. Not in it. Eww.

To be accurate, I should say we have relocated to an upper floor duplex in Mosquito-ville. “The Swamp” is actually a wetlands across the street.

Once we lived on a high hill. There we enjoyed fresh air, auditory privacy, and even a peek-aboo view of Seattle and Mt. Rainier.

Once we were young, and had better health. Once…once upon a time. You get it. We didn’t know how good we had it! We never do, until it’s gone, do we?

But for right now we live here, just a few steps from the Swamp. We are below sea level, breathing in the sometimes humid, sometimes stagnant, moldy, spore-rich air that comes with swamp living.

The Swamp is my metaphor for the hard stuff we all run into, or run away from, or are stuck in the muck of, in our lives.

Hard Stuff. You know what I mean. We can’t escape the planet without our share of it.

Yet we can find some pretty cool stuff in the Hard Stuff.

Like growth.

And faith.

And a deeper relationship with Him.

When instead of breathing swamp air, we get in the car and leave the swamp, we breathe in the sea air, and behold the beauty of the Puget Sound.

There I just stop. I stare. I stand in the rays of the full sun, and gulp in fresh salt-air, while breaking waves pound against the shore.

At the sea, I’m refreshed. There, the rotting vegetation and stinky mildew are but a memory.

And God gives us those breaks, doesn’t He? I know, even at the sea, that I have to go back. But the respite, the break, is just so good.

He is Good

I can recall some very hard places I’ve been. I look back on those particular swamp-days, and remember. I recount God’s faithfulness, the good that God had planned, all along, back then, when I plodded daily through that particular muck.

Seeing evidences of His hand on our lives, His very real presence right there alongside us in our pain, gives us courage. We gather up our stronger faith and turn to face with redoubled courage the next trial just ahead.

Step back, take a look at your life. Have you changed? How encouraging it is, to stop and to see progress. Go ahead, celebrate your strength, your better decisions, your growth. You learned some good stuff in the hard stuff. Dance!

I do know one thing: He is a good God. He is a faithful Lord. He is worthy of our trust, even in our own Sloughs of Despond.

His presence in the Hard Stuff is real. Him being by our side makes all the difference. He is with us, like He promised He would be.