I had the very good fortune to have a lot of fun and happy moments packed into a 24 hour period two days ago, and I realized after that it is almost more difficult for me to process the happy emotions than the sad. How crazy!

I went from one great moment to another…a trip to Tampa for a closing and a concert after with a wonderful young couple I have been working with who were purchasing their first home. Because the date of closing fell on the night my son was to play in concert in Tampa, I invited them to enjoy it with me in celebration. We happened to have a notary closing (the only type that made it movable, and it was a purchase from a builder so the seller did not have to be present either). So we moved the closing to the hotel where we were staying and closed between lunch with my son and dinner before his show!

It was only after I got home the next day that the tears of joy began to flow. I thought what am I crying about? I just had an amazing and wonderful time!

Only then did I begin to realize that while I have become very adept at handling the crisis that come in life, I am less adept at having fun and participating in the warmth of people around me and things going smoothly and well. I am used to always being ready for the thing that could jeopardize everything and I have become perhaps too vigilant being the lookout! I don’t see that as sad, but I am now aware that it happens to me. I now will be more prepared when tears of joy seem to come from nowhere.

Perhaps God wired me differently. I seem to find good in even the bad things that happen in life, but am I finding bad in the good? I don’t think so. I think I just recognize that life is indeed full of a lot of emotions, and sometimes they stay inside and sometimes they come out. Isn’t this why we cry at movies when sometimes our partner or spouse or friend doesn’t?

Always hard to explain to someone else, but just know it’s OK….sometimes we can be so happy we cry, or so sad we don’t. It’s all good and it will all balance out in the end!

When I had some emergency surgery recently, I was told to go home and fill my pain medication prescription, keep the Tylenol and Aleve handy, and most of all to “try and stay ahead of the pain.”

I wasn’t quite sure what the doctor meant by that, but I was grateful to see they had prescribed only about ten pills (I only took two the whole time, and cut even those in half) instead of the full bottle they used to charge you for. Mine mostly went down the toilet, so I usually vacillated between filling a prescription and just keeping it handy in case and until I was actually IN pain.

There was much to be said for this theory, however. Once you experience the pain, every nerve in your body seems to record it, so that it can play it back at the mere hint of it returning.  If, however, one stays ahead of the pain, taking the medication just prior to the previous dose wearing totally off, one never actually experiences the pain.

So this got me thinking. What if, when we saw pain approaching, and by this now I am referring to primarily emotional pain and heartache, we actually embraced it and went with it, instead of stoically trying to push it back? Like my young surfer previously, wouldn’t we be able to ride it out better if we tried to skirt out just ahead of it instead of being caught in the crash and foam and being thrown every which way?

I think there is a lesson in all that. If we truly trust God to bring us through every circumstance, no matter how potentially hazardous it may appear, isn’t He going to know how to ride the wave and stay ahead of the pain?

He is, and He will also probably be delighted we trusted Him enough to take that ride together!