all this is too wonderful for me

people (ie: my mom) have told me for years that i always seem to want everything to go exactly the way i want it to, the way i think it should go. i like to think of this as something much less self-centered & a little more noble than it sounds... i like to think that this deep-seated desire for things to go a certain way, for things to go "right," is a sortof longing for eden, an evidence of what should have been. it's actually served me pretty well by pushing me to seek for meaning outside of myself & my world.
but i am realizing that i definitly do push this way of thinking too far. since i have this tendency to always be expecting things to go a certain way, i get pretty devestated when they don't. i have a hard time accepting pain as a part of life. so i end up unable to cope, which in turn leaves me miserable (which in turn makes me not exactly the most pleasant person in the world to be around.)
i've noticed a change in my way of thinking lately, in my way of dealing with stuff. i'm just starting to get my mind around what it is that's changing... but it has to do with circumstance, with coming to a point where you have to learn to be able to say, "shit happens." it has to do with whether or not God is big enough that all kinds of crap can happen, & He can still be good.
anyway, here is what some people who are older & wiser have to say on the subject...

"own your pain - that is, integrate your pain into your way of being in the world." ~henri nouwen

"life is pain, highness. anyone who tells you differently is selling something." ~wesley (princess bride)

"if there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, i know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. but this was shown: that in falling & rising again we are always kept in that same precious love." ~julian of norwich

"safe?... who said anything about safe? 'course he isn't safe. but he's good. he's the King, i tell you." ~mr. beaver

"either God is sovereign or He's not. i choose to believe that He is." ~hallie johnson

"the edges of God are tragedy. the depths of God are joy, beauty, resurrection, life. resurrection answers crucifixion; life answers death." ~marjorie hewitt suchocki

"my friend john macmurray tells me the first book written in the Bible is the book of job. moses wrote job before he wrote genesis, most scholars agree, & so the first thing God wanted to communicate to mankind was that life is hard, & there is pain, great pain in life, & yet the answer to this pain, or the cure for this pain, is not given in explanation; rather, God offers to this pain, or this life experience, Himself. not steps, not an understanding, not a philosophy, but Himself. i take this to mean the first thing God wanted to communicate to humanity was that He was God, He was very large & in control,

sorting snow in kansas,

stopping waves at a certain point on the beach,

causing clouds to carry rain,

causing wind to race down imaginary hills of barometric pressure, & that if He could do all this, then He could be trusted, & that, perhaps, this would help us through our lives. & so from the beginning, from the very first story told in Scripture, God presents life, as it is, without escape, with only Himself to cling to. it worked for job, after all, because even before God healed him, & even before God returned his wealth & even while job was sitting by a fire picking scabs from his wounds & mourning his family, he would respond to the whirlwind God spoke through by saying, all this is too wonderful for me." ~donald miller