“Do not let your heart be troubled (afraid, cowardly). Believe [confidently] in God and trust in Him, [have faith, hold on to it, rely on it, keep going and] believe also in Me.” John 14:1 AMP

It has been a long time since I’ve written anything, and even now I am struggling to find words. We have had a great deal of change and flux in our life over the last several weeks, and now we are at a point where we can start to let the dust settle. As human beings, we have a phenomenal capacity for making life MUCH more complicated than it really is. Looking at the photo above, I see what I believe life and a relationship with God is really about. I am the seagull, and God is the sun. It is my choice to walk in the light of God, allowing Him to illuminate the path ahead, to warm my heart and soul with His love and peace, understanding that even when it’s in the dark of night, He will still find a way to shine His light on me via the moon and the stars. No matter where I go or what I’m facing, His light is ALWAYS trying to reach me.

My sister and I were discussing yesterday how much pain and hurt there is in the world. She sees it in her job as a nurse and healthcare executive, and I see it in mine as a Hospice nurse. In truth, everyone on the planet is suffering to some degree. Right now I have dear friends who have lost or are losing people they dearly love. I, myself, have done so much grieving over the last two years, I’ve almost lost sight of the understanding that it will get better. It is so easy to get lost in the pain of being human, before we know it, we’ve started drifting away from God and into ourselves. For me, I began to fall back into an old habit of self-preservation behaviors, when I realized that I am struggling to utter a simple, coherent prayer. This is how I knew I’ve drifted off in the wrong direction.

When we are desperately in need of peace and freedom from whatever is weighing us down, the only place we can get what we need is from God. Choosing to live in the present is the only way. The past is gone, and staring backwards at it won’t change it. Doing that will only infect the present with whatever has gone before, which will impact the future. God instructs us to not worry about the future, but instead focus on the day at hand. We can try to foresee issues and troubles that may arrive down the road, but until we are faced with it, there is nothing we can do aside from wasting energy trying to solve a problem that doesn’t even exist. For me, the following scripture is a major key to living in the peace of Jesus Christ.

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34 AMP

When I chose to become a Hospice nurse, I should have been more mentally prepared for how it would feel to face end of life issues on a daily basis. I should have comprehended that all of my recent losses would still be a bit tender, and thus I would need some extra help from above in order to walk through my own pain and effectively help those God places in my path each day. Loss and grief are never easy and never simple. We are going to handle each loss differently, and we can’t rush our way through the grieving process. Grieving is hard. Period.

When someone has experienced a significant loss, they’ll rarely know how to respond to the question, “How are you?” A more appropriate question would be, “How is today going for you?” People going through grief are going to have good days and bad days. In the beginning, they are going to have good hours and bad hours. The most important thing is to let them grieve in their own way, and never assume someone isn’t in pain simply because they aren’t laying in the floor crying and wailing all the time.

Something else I’ve learned recently is that truly deep grief doesn’t just dissipate overnight. When someone gets infected with tuberculosis, the damage to their bodies, even with recovery, can be significant. There can be deep scars left in the lung tissue that leaves the person with chronic lung issues for as long as they live. The same can be true for deep grief. Whether it’s the death of someone deeply loved, the loss of an important relationship, the unexpected loss of a good job, or what have you, the pain is very real and very deep. Healing from that kind of pain takes time, patience, and faith. It means learning how to live in what is and not in what WAS. It means learning that, as long as we have faith in the love and promises of God, we will get through anything that comes our way. Those are lessons and truths I am working hard to take to heart.

God loves you. God loves me. He is always in front of us, giving us opportunities to grow and develop stronger faith and a deeper relationship with Him. The question is whether or not we choose to use the opportunities we are given, or we choose to fall back into our old familiar patterns of self-preservation. Are we more focused on discerning God’s will, or are we more focused on the ways life isn’t living up to our desires and expectations?

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].” 2 Timothy 1:7 AMP