Life as a Card Game

An email in my inbox this morning set my thinking wheels spinning once more. My best friend just spent a couple days in the hospital again and my mind wondered about this life we live and the challenges we all have to work through. Are life issues random? Why do some people deal with one set of issues and others something else?

Speaking about dealing, life is certainly like playing a card game – more like a blind man’s bluff type of game because we don’t even know what specific game we’re playing. We’re not all playing the exact same game or maybe even by the same rules. It’s just the game of living a human life.

We’re randomly dealt cards and it’s up to us to choose how we play the game. We draw new cards not knowing what will come up, then need to figure out how to use the new cards with the ones we already have. Which ones will we or can we discard?

We don’t all react the same or play the same. There may be similarities, however with so many variations – not just with the cards themselves, but with our own individual lives – we can only play the game as best we can.

Some people believe we choose our lives before we’re born. Some believe God governs our lives. Some even believe God manipulates us as if playing a game of chess. Some … well, I don’t know what they believe.

Does that answer the randomness of who gets dealt what kind of life? And if I get the queen of hearts, will I play that card the same way as someone else? And too, maybe the meaning of the ten of spades isn’t the same for everyone, so not only do we have to play the game, we have to figure out for ourselves what each card means.

Hmm, what card will I draw next? Which one will you draw?

Ach! All this makes the game more complicated. I’m going to continue with the hands I’m dealt, place my bets as I deem fit, and do my best to live lovingly and wholeheartedly.