The Hard Life

"My life is so hard."

I used to have a college roommate who said that, frequently. She would throw herself down in a chair, place the back of her hand against her forehead, and utter those dreadful words at least once a day. And then she would pick herself up, pour herself a glass of Diet Coke, and get on with the story of why life was just so impossible.

I think about those moments a lot, especially when I'm running and running and running, from laundry to work to pick up kids to buy groceries to cook something halfway acceptable (eggs? again?) to washing dishes to trying to remember to work out to falling into bed and asleep before I can turn off the light by my bed.

Sounds exhausting, doesn't it? Well, it is, and then it isn't. It is harder than the awful, dreadful things my 19 year old roommate - she of the Volvo and the 2 vacation homes - were facing? Yup, it's harder. But is it easier than what 99% of the world knows of as life? Yes and yes and yes again.

And if there's even one of you who doesn't believe me, read this and know, just for a moment: we all have it easier than so many other people. There is so much of our lives that we find hard - the traffic, the work, the making ends meet - that is so much easier, just because we do it here, in the richest nation, in the freest place, in all our middle class (or even upper middle class) glory. You all know that already without me saying a single, solitary word - that is adundantly obvious, I'm sure. But click the link and read it anyway, just because you should, even though you know already, and I know that you know, and all that. Just read, and remember.

Remember in gratefulness and not in grief. With alms-giving, born not out of guilt but out of thankgiving. May it always be so. Amen.