...now is not forever...

It's so easy to get caught up in the moment.  Far too quickly, we find ourselves consumed with the here and now, focused only on what is for today.  Think about how easily we do this.  Maybe you've just started a job, and right now it's new, hard, and frustrating.  It's so easy to grow discouraged and wonder if it will ever get any better, or if you will feel like a failure the rest of your career (and at times you might even wonder if you'll have a career...)  Maybe you find yourself in a relationship in which love does not come easily (something that happens in all relationships, not just boy/girl ones...), and it's so tempted to wonder if it things will always be like this, if there's any point in trying to work it out, or if it would be better for you to just get out of it altogether.  Maybe you've just moved to a new place, and find yourself lonely and overwhelmed, thinking you'll never find your niche, your comfortable place.  It's tempting to want to pack up and leave, running back to all you've ever known.
For me, it's to easy to find myself caught up in the moment when my precious baby girl is crying for what feels like the hundredth time in two hours, and I don't really know how to help her.  It's easy to doubt, to question, to dread, and to grow discouraged...feeling like it will be this way forever.
These words from my mother-in-law have been a lifesaver.  I've thought many times about writing them in permanent marker on my daughter's forehead, so that I can't forget them:  "Now is not forever."  Today, right here, right now...is but for a moment.  This time, no matter how hard, how frustrating, or how painful, has a beginning...and an end.  Today will pass, and tomorrow will be here.  And, there will come a day that is not today, one in which the difficulty of here and now will be gone.
So then, what are we to do while we are in today?  While all of that sounds well and good, it does not change the fact that hard circumstances are still...well, hard.  They're still discouraging, and frustrating, and painful.
I think the answer to remind ourselves of whose we are.  In the Psalms, David says, "But I call to God, and the Lord will save me.  Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.  He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage...Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved."  (Psalm 55:17-18, 22)
Now is not forever.  And with that truth in mind, I will choose instead to cling to what I know will last:  a God who is above and beyond time, a God for whom forever is all He has ever known.  Rather than growing discouraged that today is hard and no fun, I will choose to relish the fact that He always is, and He is always good.  And clinging to that truth, I will reach a time that is not now, and a day that is not today.  May you do the same.