So What's Real Anyway?

The funny thing with being depressed is that you feel like, finally, you're facing things as they really are. (Or not facing them, as the case may be.) You've come to the realization that life really does stink--tremendously--and that the reality of existence is pain.

While depression doesn't usually last that long, when you're on the opposite end of things, (i.e. you're happy), you still have this niggling feeling underneath the surface that you're not really looking life full in the face, that you're brushing over the negative aspects of life just so you can get through the day. Maybe there's even some truth to that. Maybe being happy isn't so much seeing the positive things in life as it is ignoring the negative things in life... At least, maybe that's the happiness that most people have.

However, I don't think that this is the way that God is happy. (And Pam, I know we kind of did this conversation in email a few weeks back--I'm just rehashing it here. Hope you don't mind.)

God is happy in the face of all misery and all joy. Sometimes I wonder how that's possible. Maybe it's because that, while he sees all the sorrow & suffering & sin that exist on the earth, he also recognizes & revels with us in our joy, and in our goodness. Or maybe it's something more than that. I know He feels sorrow too, but I wonder if it's that eternal perspective He has, that He can really see that good does outweigh evil, that it really is triumphant in the end.

Bother. I really shouldn't be trying to philosophize at 10:30 at night, especially when I have a headache, and I don't even know why I'm writing about this, except that I was thinking about this today, and I wanted to put my thoughts out there, where you guys read it. Thanks, as always, for taking a moment to read my meanderings.