Walking through the fog to get where you're going

I had all sorts of things to accomplish on one particular Friday, and I sprang from bed full of energy and expectation. Isn't that what happens to most of us when we feel motivated and excited because of the plans we have for the upcoming day? My feet hit the floor like a champion on a track team, and I rushed to open all my window coverings. Some are cloth curtains, and the rest are window shades. I prepared for what I would see outside those windows, as I anticipated the kind of day I was expecting. I took a long deep breath and flung open my last window covering so I could see the promise of that morning. However, what I saw was not at all what I had so eagerly awaited. I looked, again out the window.

I scrutinized more closely, my window panes, and found that the glass was not smooth and streakless as usual. Clean windows were a condition that I especially appreciated. Instead, I saw streaks of water zigzagging across and up and down on them. I could scarcely see through the normally clear panes. Between the streaks of moisture, fog occupied all the space outside, and it stubbornly refused to budge.

"What could I do now?" I asked myself. "My plans are ruined."

Disappointment perched itself upon my shoulder, and I retreated into myself, momentarily -- but since I seldom give up, I knew that feelings of futility would not be an option for me. I began to dissect the ramifications of the dilemma knowing that, surely, I could do something to make the best of a seemingly bad day.

Within my thoughts, I looked back into various scenarios that had occurred within my past. After thinking for a while, I recognized that fog is a part of life. How many have accomplished anything or reached their goals without an amount of hardship, difficult circumstances or, at least a failure or two? I came to the conclusion that fog spurs one to work harder and exert more effort to get where he's going. We don't usually turn around and retrace our steps when the weather's bad. No indeed, instead we keep going on finding a way to deal with it another way. If we are driving we turn the car lights on, and drive more carefully. Even when someone walks to a destination, he walks more cautiously and does whatever he can to overcome the obstacles that the fog presents.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, my mind cleared as I watched the window with its scars of striped rain and then fog. As I watched my plans crumble because of the circumstances, I witnessed a transformation right in front of my eyes. The water dripped off the windows, leaving the streaks and messiness behind and allowed the sunshine to take its place. Rather than seeing the foggy appearance, that I once noticed, I now recognized the beautiful landscape outside that had been covered before, by the fog. I jumped with joy because, now, I could accomplish my intentions for the day. After worrying, fretting and feeling disappointed, things had turned out in my favor, after all. Once again, I was reminded that the fog does lift in our lives, eventually, and we will be able to accomplish those desires for which we have toiled so hard. If we end up going in a direction other than where we originally intended, I believe that God will lift that veil of fog so we can see more clearly -- watching the sun shining again. A Bible Scripture, Corinthians 13:12 says this, "We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog peering through a mist, but it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us"!

After the seemingly trite example of the window, the fog, and then, the appearance of the sunshine that cured it all; I think I shall remember that something good almost always follows what's seemingly bad in our lives.