A good trade

On Thursday morning, so many things crashed in about me.  I was ready to cry anyway and a couple of phone calls just broke the levee. My humanness crowded and flowed out with the flood of tears as a flood carries cars and trees and even houses in its rush.  I found myself sitting in front of the camera on my computer.  I started trying to sing a song I could not find on youtube.  After a line or two I was overwhelmed and could not continue. Slowly, painstakingly I told a horrendous story of my own pain and contamination to the camera, some things I've never spoken before but have been trying to process for a couple of years.
When the air was out of my balloon, I sobbed for a bit and chose to delete the video.  Then I found the cd with the song I'd been trying to find on youtube and began pulling positive images that encourage my heart off my picture files to create a slideshow of my own.  When I had the compilation, I was amazed by my own effort. There are stories of redemption and restoration throughout the video.  There are great pockets of hope and goodness that only God could have engineered. The statement "It's what I know.." is an affirmation that sometimes things change, some things break, some things are taken away, but their presence in my life has made me who I am and the memories encourage and give me hope.
Tomorrow, life may change again.  One day it will be gone.  But I know that God's love and grace has given again and again in this life, will bring me through anything in my future and will, one day, take me into an eternal existence that lacks this pain and confusion.
For anyone who doesn't know, the video is simply a family album with a pretty song attached.  It may not even make sense why those images are with that music.  But if you know and think about it, you will understand.  It is grace that brought me here; it is grace that will take me onward.
It was a good trade for the collection of pain and defeat that I assembled the first time.