What a beautiful day! The birds are singing, the sun is coming up, and all the creatures great and small are starting to move. It all feels so fresh, new and exciting — another opportunity to enjoy the gift of life that our Creator has so graciously granted us.
It’s almost hard to believe Hurricane Hermine came through a few days ago with ferocious winds, some rain and a lot of pretty ominous looking clouds. Only our yard showed the leftover bits and pieces of what once was a pretty big storm.
Mother Nature’s storms have always been breathtakingly beautiful to me as long as they are not doing any damage. Life storms — well yes on the breathtaking part and even the beauty but years of learning and I still struggle with the latter.
After Hermine, a thought kept coming to me — Don’t get stuck in the storm! Mother Nature does her business and moves on. She may stall a bit, but you don’t see her sitting around for years mulling over something. I’ve been STUCK for awhile — wallowing in the past and having those should have, could have, would have moments stuck in my head — or worse yet, memories of traumatic events replaying like a video trailer for a new horror movie. Regardless of which one, each still wasting precious time on things that were over or things of which I have no control. Do you ever do that? It is a vicious cycle, isn’t it?
It can be overwhelming when we find ourselves stuck in life or a storm, feeling like no matter how hard we try or no matter what we do that nothing can pull us out of the plunge. Those moments and days it seems difficult to think or breathe, right? The truth of the matter is life can be sheer damn hell in an abundance of ways. You can get hit with not one thing but ten and then a few more. If we aren’t mindful, the past can eat up the present and then the future because we cling to our pain for far too long. It’s not that we forget what happened as we let go of the pain. To the contrary, we are honoring whatever it was and what it taught us by doing so. If we can allow the process to unfold without resisting, that helps.
Sometimes I struggle with resistance, and then I grow weary and tired. Instead of allowing life to unfold and getting silent with God I begin wandering and wondering. Next thing I know I’ve fallen into the trap of counting all the bad things and forgetting that all of the bad things eventually became good things. Some of them — really good things. If you know my story then you know. But in case you don’t let me give you the list.
The death of a loved one — several loved ones. Check.
Loss of a job and career. Check.
Financial hardship. Check.
Seeing others suffer. Check again.
Complicated family or friendship situations. Oh yes, major check, check.
Health issues. Yes.
Betrayal. Check.
Depression and anxiety that feels like it’s sucking the life right out of me. Check, check and check.
I know a LOT of you can check a LOT of those off, too. Those losses and pains lead to a whole lot of anger and fear and ______ — you fill in your blank. Anger is not a bad thing, but it is terribly unhealthy just to stay there. Feel the anger of the loss or whatever it is you feel from the pain but don’t get stuck in it.
When you are in pain whether mental or physical, your mind will play tricks on you. Why me? Do I have to hurt again? Poor me! I’m not strong enough! I can’t do this! Did I go through all of this and now I’m going to die?
My life circumstances have brought me to some pretty dark places. I’ve wanted to give up and move on — to be with Griffen and all of those who have passed on but then thoughts of sweet Griffen on the morgue table quickly remind me that I promised I would take the most God-awful times in my life and do something good with every single one of them. I would not be the victim. I would be the victor, and I would walk courageously through the storms — the fires — the whatever it might be, and I would overcome. Why? Because that is what, we are supposed to do.
God didn’t put us here to find the, “Oh, poor me, life is too hard, I just can’t do this.” Our Creator put us here to find, the. “Yes, I can and yes I will, and I will use the heartbreaking/devastating/challenging experiences and circumstances to grow closer to the One who gave me this, beautiful gift of life, to begin with!” And then I will take that lesson and pay it forward by passing on what I’ve learned along with some of my courage and strength to the next person. If I can do it, you can too!
The way we get there is to look straight in the mirror and see the beautiful miracle that we are. Just take a look at yourself. You might not feel it, but your body is a miracle. Okay. Now pull in and look a little closer — there is a Soul inside your body. I think that is where God lives in us and I don’t think there are any words to even explain the miracle and the magnitude of how awesome it is. Woohoo! That gives me chills.
Once you acknowledge that you are a miracle then take a real leap and ask yourself where you fit into all of this? What is my role and what am I doing to get better? Do I want to get better or do I want to live the rest of my days in this, like this? That is one heck of a hard part of this thing called life! I think it might be even more challenging than the storms that break us.
Looking at ourselves and coming to terms with who we are is some heavy stuff and seriously hard work. Through our introspection, something else miraculous occurs. Our Faith muscle gets stronger and stronger. Maybe the loss of our loved one or whatever tragedy that occurred is as much for others as for us. Maybe it is because there will eventually be someone who sees you/us overcoming and it saves their life.
When you are in the storm, that sounds good, but it doesn’t magically fix or alleviate the horrible pain. In my life, it has comforted me when I’m in pain to know that I can be used in service to others. Knowing that makes it a little easier.
As long as we breathe, there will be sunny days and rainy days and some in between. I’m no expert but do believe that the goal is to find the sunshine in the rain and keep moving forward and learning and growing closer to God until the time comes for us to shed our human body and go home. Until our time arrives to leave this world, it is just magnificent when you come out of the storm, and you see all of the beauty of what is left behind.
Like our yard after Hermine — everything looks clearer, cleaner and brighter. The weak branches are on the ground, and the remaining branches are sitting awaiting the next ray of the sunshine or the next major storm. Like the landscape, our life storms prune away what needs to be removed and leave what is meant to be there so it can grow. What is left behind has been pruned for a purpose that we might not even know. We do know that pruning makes everything more beautiful even if it isn’t evident, to begin with.
Thank God for people — Earth Angels — who, without even knowing, give a word or a gesture that helps us to keep on going even when we want to give up. Thank God for storms and thank God for you!!!
Love and Light to you always!
Kim
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