Poppies and a Moon.

There are days when everything seems to go just the way you want it to go, then there are days when everything seems to go against you and life seems harsh. I heard yesterday of the loss of a very dear friend. The family have meant much to me for many years. They wondered if I could conduct the funeral but sadly for me, I just could not manage to do so.  I would so have liked to be able to offer some comfort in a difficult time.

This is the way of life no matter how we try not all things can work in our favour. Sometimes our desires, dreams and hopes find little support in the everyday turn of life.

Only a very few of us can say that we are living our lives exactly according to our wishes. For the majority of us, life is a series of conflicts between our inner beings and idea and the other restrictions that life brings to us and it is totally out of our hands.

Sometimes life seems harsh a cruel and we just cannot manage the circumstances we find ourselves in.

We all have goals and dreams along with hope and expectations and this is good. But we also have to have the patience of forbearance, things will not always be as we wish. That being said the very struggle against the odds can be of great benefit to us.

For steel be of any value it has to endure the heat and the pounding of the forge to temper it and give it strength. Once the harvest is gathered the corn wheat and barley must all endure the grinding of the millstone before they can become the flour that will make the bread, the beer or the cereal.

It is from the hardships of life that we learn how to overcome the difficulties and feel a deep sense of accomplishment when things are achieved.

Let us turn to the arts. A musician may compose a wonderful piece of music in a short period of time. I have spent days and weeks trying to compose a hymn and a tune, on other days I have done both in an hour. An artist can paint a masterpiece in one sitting. Every artist reading this can remember those days when everything went perfect and even the mistakes enhanced the work rather than detracted.

A writer can write a significant piece in a short time. I have written a sermon or a blog in the time it takes to have a shower.

There are for all those days when "it all happened so fast and so easily."

But the truth is that the music, the painting and the writing took a lifetime. years of struggle and practice. All the failed attempts just for that moment of success and climax.

For that which is of value comes from the furnace of life full of its ups and downs trial and tribulations. But oh the joy it brings when we reach the point of accomplishment.

Keep your eye on the aim and have a wonderful day.