Sadness and Gratitude

Today I am pondering the fact that love is the essence of life, but why does in constantly throw us into sadness and darkness? If we are to love and love completely, why is it so hard and painful to maintain? Living a life of love can be extremely challenging and harsh, but why?

Life throws curve balls at us daily through loss, death, hurt relationships, loneliness, and the list goes on. We are all human with many human flaws. Family and friends often hurt us the most, and that is a huge pill to swallow.

I find it easy to find ourselves playing the victim, feeling sorry for ourselves and rejected. But why? Why is it so important to us? Is this our way of lashing out and extinguishing the pain and hurt we are feeling?

But there must be more, something deeper that can answer the question of “why”.

We constantly ask ourselves if we are unlovable, are we meant to be happy, appreciated and are we supposed to fit in or just stand out like a sore thumb?! The more I think about these whys and these questions, the more I see how we position ourselves as victims and unable to see solutions. This mentality limits our vision and our ability to function in a constructive and positive manner.

As I sit here, I know that we were not created to be leaves blown around by life’s storms.  No, ma’am, we are meant to be mentally healthy, to be used in a positive manner, to live out the life that our Creator designed us to be. However, the storms of life try to hinder this purpose, try to drag us down and keep us non-functional and unable to live out the greater purposes that God has for us.

Perhaps, all we need is a healthy dose of perspective change?! What if we believed the truth:  that we are very important human beings who are very loved and accepted by our Creator? If we truly look back on our lives, there is so much to be grateful for and so much to say that we learned from and became better... precisely because of the life storms that we have endured and have come through. We are truly blessed in so many ways; we just need to acknowledge and recognize these small blessings that are in our life. Negativity and bad experiences often times drown out these good and positive aspects of our lives, but we need to remind ourselves of these lessons and keep our perspective in balance.

It is very possible to feel good about our lives, even when we are hurting so deeply. I know that it can be done!

We will never know why what happens to us happens, but there is always a reason and something in it that we can grow from, develop from, and ultimately become stronger and smarter because of what we have been through. You may have gone through something, just to be able to help someone else out as they go through a similar situation down the road.

So life is a journey, celebrate your successes, embrace your failures and setbacks and keep moving forward... always keeping you perspective in check of all the blessings you do have in life.

You are amazing, you are appreciated, you are worth it!