In what I believe to be one of the best pieces I've read in a very long time, Erick Erickson of RedState speaks, at a time when we all need to hear it, to hope in the darkness:
My life is not all peaches and roses. But I write this whole story and highlight the ups, not the downs,
because I do not believe in coincidences. I do not believe in luck. I believe in an active Creator. I have experienced too much in my life to lead me to think this is all atoms and physics and chemistry and coincidence. I have experienced pain and misfortune and sadness, but as much as those things too define me it is the joys of life I dwell on.
There is a man upstairs. He has a plan. And while I do not know the mind of the Creator, I know this all works for the good of those who are called according to His purpose. I do not know His plan, but I have experienced enough in my life to know I should trust Him and that His plan, however confounding it may seem, is a good plan that will work out in the end for the best.
So I raise my head these last few days and see liberals salivating at the idea that it might be a right wing tea partier who blew up Boston while conservatives are convinced it is a Middle Eastern terrorist. I see the wailing and gnashing of teeth over gun control, the evil of Kermit Gosnell, and the politicization of everything. Then there is the destruction in Waco, the dead and injured — it is enough to make you want to sit in the mud while holding your child close and cry.
It should be hard to be optimistic, but I, a natural pessimist, I am optimistic. I have hope. I know that there is a higher purpose to it all. I know that there is not just the rudimentary day to day existence in which we live, but there is a master plan to it all. I know some of you do not believe that and you are entitled to reject that. But I have experienced too much in my life and see clearly in hindsight an active presence who leads me somewhere down a path I did not choose, but on which I walk.
Choosing to let your heart not be troubled is not easy. It is often hard. We see bombings in Boston, planes flying into tall buildings, random explosions killing many at one time in Texas, politicians and citizens at each others throats and it seems the whole world has gone mad. But the world has always been mad. We are just more aware of it these days with bold events that shock the conscience.
We are on a blue marble circling a giant ball of plasma that if we draw too close to we burn up as we and it hurtle around a black hole at the center of a galaxy scientists believe will one day collide with another galaxy. The world is a crappy, hostile place in a colder than ice dangerous expanse of vacuum, radiation, and sweet meteors of death. The thought that we exist as we do at all borders on absurdity.
And yet there is a one year old who, though she knows not why her father cries in the rain and mud, pats his face to tell him it is okay. There are strangers who, instead of running from the blast, turn to it to help those who have fallen. There is a President some of us care little for who chooses his words carefully to bind the wounds of dark days for all of us regardless of our votes.
The world is not meant to be fair. It is a maddening place filled with bad and evil. But the good shines through. The right overwhelms the wrong. The very real good slays the very real evil. The smiles break through the tears.
You do not have to be mad in a maddening world. You can choose to be happy. You can choose to be optimistic. You can choose to let not your heart be troubled.
You need to read the whole thing to understand the context, the back story.
You just do.
Then pass it on.
And carry on.
