On being forever broken

I work very hard at trying to be positive.  At looking for good and for hope.

Often, I am certain, I annoy those closest to me by seeing positive things that may not be there. I often focus on the trends that are rising or improving, in myself and in others, in reasons to be positive. 

When I'm sick I try not to burden others with it.  Usually, with a little medicine and some rest, it will pass.  Sometimes it doesn't (ok, I admit, it took me almost three years to go in to see someone about an inflamed rotator cuff.   It took less than a week of following the advice I got for it to go away).

It that regard I have to admit that I also see the negative.  I am not unaware that there are counter efforts.  I see my own failings and hear them.

That is, because, in my heart I am certain that I am permanently broken.

Some of that is real.  When I heard in grief groups that the pain of the loss of a child stays with you forever, it did not really sink in.  You cope and you recover, but the loss remains.  My three girls, Jessica, Courtney and Robin are with me in the change of the seasons and in every evolution of my life.

Some of that is just a personal failing because I can not improve fast enough, understand quickly enough, meet other's needs well enough, be enough.  Part of that is multitasking, as I think through and put things together for work in my mind. I often spend an hour or two before work fitting things together in my mind.

Some of that is a lack of aptitude, though I am getting better at mechanical things with practice.  So many areas of my life I lack aptitude.

Some of that is wasting time with reading or television equivalents (more reading -- I admit, I read essays and on-line material instead of watching television) or games.  I'm probably consuming about ten hours a week on that sort of thing, in recreation that I really do not need.

But much of it is that we are all broken, which is why we all need Christ.  Without him we are forever broken.  But with him, our hope is not in vain.  Our sorrow is not forever.  The negative can be overcome.

By and of myself I am nothing.  But in Christ I have hope that does not fail.  Forever.