Disappointments & Perspective

Sometimes it just feels like life dumps on you. Disappointments pile up. Lost dreams. Betrayals. Hurts. Sickness. Lost jobs. Lost friends. Feelings of abandonment. It can be really hard to keep a right perspective about things.

I guess one of those right perspectives is that everyone goes through stuff. There is nothing that I can experience that someone else…in fact many someone elses…have not also gone through. Sometimes it seems like there is an inequality about how much stuff gets dumped on us. It seems like some people get a whole lot more than others. But is that really true? I don’t know.

I do know that there can be many things that we don’t see on the outside. There can be many pains and hurts and burdens that only the person going through it really knows about.

I seriously doubt that there is anyone who has not felt the sting of being hurt by a friend…or who has not been disappointed by a family member. Who has never lost a job? Or never gotten sick? There are some who have never felt the sting of the death of a loved one…but I daresay that most of us have, especially if we are “older”. Some, sadly, have experienced that at a very young age.

I need to keep my trials in perspective. I am not being beaten…currently. I am fairly healthy…as in I have no life threatening or serious persistent health problems. I am not starving…I have food to eat. I have shelter…I am not living in a cardboard box or under an overpass…or in a refugee camp. I am not being tortured or raped for my spiritual beliefs. Hmmm…maybe I don’t have it so bad after all?

There are hurts in life. Everyone has them. I must learn to work through them and move on. I don’t know if that is more of a challenge than it is for most folks because of what I have gone through as a survivor…or not. I guess we can all struggle with letting go of things.

I know that, for me, I am challenged right now to work through something. It is one of those situations where I don’t know if I can fully delve into the deep emotions connected with this until I move away from the whole place where it happened. Right now, I have to stay connected to that place and I think it is making it harder for me to work through it.

However, I won’t give up trying. I need to work through the anger. Those deep emotions keep getting triggered inside…bringing tears to the surface. I need to work through this so that a root of bitterness does not grow. I don’t want to hate…yet I feel the anger pushing to the surface and I find myself tempted to say “I hate”. I really don’t want to go there. I want my heart to be free…not locked in a prison of hatred and bitterness.

Nope…I don’t want to go there. I must find a way to work through…and truly forgive.