Life Won’t Ever Be Perfect, but It Can Be Good

In Making Sense When Life Doesn’t Cecil Murphey helps readers accept, adapt and flourish when the trials of life throw them off track.

Life is like cleaning the house—no matter how hard you work to clean up the mess, tomorrow the clutter and disorder will reappear, and it will just need cleaning again. In Making Sense When Life Doesn’t: The Secrets of Thriving in Tough Times(Summerside Press) best-selling author Cecil Murphey writes that while life’s messiness is unavoidable, it’s how a person chooses to respond to the mess that matters.

None of us wants to be an expert on messes, but Murphey has walked through many hard times himself, including the tragic loss of his son-in-law in a fire that destroyed his home and everything in it. In his career as a writer, pastor and missionary, he’s been a witness to what tragedy and change have done in the lives of countless others. Combined, these experiences allow him to share the secrets of thriving in tough times with wisdom and compassion.

Making Sense When Life Doesn't

Murphey explains that while you don’t get to choose your crisis, the crises will happen. Companies downsize, relationships end, trauma hits, and illness comes, but there are three ways in which we can respond: decide to live with the mess and comfort yourself with the memories of the past, move on with life and resent the change, or tell yourself that this can be the best time of life and try something new.

One of the most important lessons we can learn is that life will never be perfect, but it can be good. The secret is learning that our lives will be made better because of adversity, not in spite of the hardships we face. “As long as you tell yourself that the chaos and disorder will disappear when an event happens or after some event, you fool yourself—at least for a time,” says Murphey.

In a gentle and encouraging way, Murphey offers simple and profound insights for living a significant life such as:

• I need the empty spaces in life to learn to accept fullness in life.
• I need my opponents. They often speak the truth that my friends won’t.
• To appreciate others’ accomplishments enables me to enjoy my own success.
• We all have regrets about the things we’ve done. The biggest regrets are about the things we didn’t do.
• It’s okay to feel sorry for yourself or get angry or depressed—that’s normal and natural. But don’t let those negative emotions control your life.
• Changes will happen. I can accept them now, or I’ll be forced to accept them later.
• We all have soft spots, and as long as they remain, we’ll automatically switch into a defensive mode to protect ourselves.

Making Sense When Life Doesn’t will leave readers viewing life from a new perspective and better equipped the next time they are faced with difficult times.