Shakespeare said it first. Steinbeck followed with a book with the title. I kind of like the quote above, because it describes me. When I’ve gone through a time of trial, the best thing for me is to forget about it. I know that we should learn from our testing in this life, but for me, the answer seems to be to simply erase the memory from my data bank.

Who would’ve thought our entire world would have been turned upside down because of a bacteria? Who would’ve thought isolation would be the answer? Who knows whether immunities will form and the vaccines now available will control the spread of the disease?

When the calendar jumped from 2019 to 2020, who would’ve thought old wounds would be front and center again? Who would even suggest defunding the people who are hired to protect us? In a time of peril, why would tempers fester and hatred rise to an all time high? In an election year, there would be mudslinging like no other time. There would be challenge after challenge to the legality of the voting. There would be more rage as our nation divided even further because of it.

With protests raging, kids going to school at home via the Internet, politics getting darker and meaner, all of our entertainment venues were shut down, people lost their jobs and businesses collapsed. What a year!

And now we are in the midst of the winter of our discontent. Will we recover? Will we move on? Will we set aside our differences and work together as a united nation? Will the wounds of the past, become the rage of our future? Will life ever be the same again?

My ability to erase the ugliness of past events may seem like a good thing, but unfortunately in doing so many of my good memories are lost as well. So I don’t recommend this as a solution. We must learn from the past, no matter how difficult it may be.

As we come to the end of a massively difficult year, we need God now more than ever. Let us turn back a couple thousand years ago, when Jesus came to earth as a human baby. Let’s recall the 33 years He spent on this earth. Let’s remember his horrific death to redeem all of us from hell. Let’s rejoice for His resurrection and His promise that we will also rise after death and live with Him eternally.

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

Spoken by Richard III in Shakespeare’s play Richard III