How many times have I said that to myself over the years...too many to count I can tell you that. So how do we get to the mindset that whatever the worry, challenge or heartache we are enduring, to not let it over power us into thinking that there is no way out or no way to survive it.
I am sure in our own way each of us has had sadness at some point that is so devastating we would rather have a physical wound for it would hurt less than this wound to the heart. For while physical wounds may leave scars, those scars do fade over time, and they do eventually heal. Emotional or wounds to the heart many times hang on for a lifetime and open randomly again and again leaving you thinking that indeed this pain will never be completely gone. Whether your personal moments have been the loss of a job, a divorce, a loved one getting cancer or to the most extreme the loss of a child. How do we heal from that? Time? Acceptance? No words can comfort, no time can erase, no explanation can be good enough to make that kind of pain go away or justify the situation at least to me.
So if we can't change these devastating moments in our lives, then the key is to know how to get through and survive those moments. How can we face those challenging wounds in life that cripple us emotionally. How do we find strength to get up each morning when you have just lost your reason for getting up. How do we find the courage when there feels like no hope in sight of ever recovering? I'd like to share a moment of some things that have helped me. While I am not someone that screams my faith in your face I want to share something that has comforted me in my life during times when I didn't think I had it in me to go it alone one more day. There is a song that a Christian artist wrote years ago that goes "when I think I'm going under part the waters Lord, and when I feel the waves around me calm the sea, and when I cry for help oh hear me Lord and hold out your hand, touch my life, still the raging storm in me, knowing you love me, helps me face another day..." I have sung this song since high school each and every time I feel that I am sinking under the pressures of life and not sure if I can go on. Singing that song for me is a message from me to God telling him that I am in pain, I can't do it alone and I need to find a way to get through it with Him. Have I always been accepting of what I am going through? No, sometimes when I have been angry at God for allowing a particular hardship when I would see others going their merry way who didn't even believe in a God my song would be more of "okay God you have me sinking here so what is the plan to save me cause I'm not a good swimmer to begin with". It comforts me to know that while I do not understand why God puts challenging things or devastating moments into the lives of good people he is there to help us through it. He also speaks about never giving us anything we cannot handle and while there are some times I have looked up to heaven and shouted..."really God, You think I am strong enough to handle this, can not someone else take a turn?" I know that I will make it through for if he has given me this hardship and believes in my strength to get through it, I may not like it, but there is a reason for it, now I just need to get through those "parted waters".
I have found that one breath, one minute, one hour, one day, one week, one year, until it's a lifetime...that is how we must live our lives during times of pain or when feeling we cannot go on. It is okay to be angry and even to be angry with God. It's okay to have thoughts that you are not sure as you lay down at night how you are going to make it through another day or even if you want to make it through another day because the pain seems too great to bare. That being said, my reason for writing this is to encourage you that no matter what level of challenges or pain you are going through...one thing I know for sure and I'd like you to remember is that while you may go to bed and not be sure if you can go another day...when your eyes open in the morning and there is breath left in your body...while you may not understand it now, there is a reason you are to carry on, a reason you are still here...someone out there needs you to survive for them, to get strong again, to keep moving, to not give up, and to not give in. It's in you, you just have to know when you are ready to find it...
I leave you with one of my favorite quotes on Courage: "Courage is not always the loud roar, sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says..."I will try again tomorrow".
Dedicated to a young couple who's son died in his sleep last week. My prayers are with them.
Debra
