There Is Always Hope

Life can be difficult, challenging, painful, and confusing, and still there is always hope. Hope for redemption, for awakening to love.

But when I am in pain, or when I am fearful, I doubt myself. I doubt my goodness, my worth, my purpose. At such times, I ask, what am I supposed to do with my life?

To love unconditionally and whole heartedly. Love yourself. Love others. Love life.

But how can I love when I am in such pain and doubt?

By coming to me and laying it all at my feet.

What if I don’t believe in you? What if I don’t have faith? What if I only believe in myself and in my pain and in my doubt, because that is all I can see and feel?

Then I would ask, what has that given you?

More of the same. Hopelessness. Anguish.

Would it be worthwhile to try something new? To entertain the notion that you are not alone? That there is indeed a power greater than you, a power over which you have no control, be it the sky, the air you breathe, the life force that gives the plant on your shelf new shoots. Could you maybe talk to that greater power? I tell you that part of belief and faith comes in sharing that doubt and grief with a power greater than yourself. Say, “I hurt. I doubt myself. I don’t like this, but I’m going to sit with it and see what happens rather than push it away.”

You might do this alone in prayer. Or with your therapist, or with a spiritual adviser, or a friend, or within the membership of a 12-step program of some kind, or in your journal. Write about it. Draw a picture of it. Talk to it. Ask what this pain, this shame wants. You have been resisting it, trying to make it go away, don’t. All it wants is to be noticed, to be accepted. Only then can you change your attitude towards it. You cannot change your attitude towards pain and shame if you are constantly resisting it, which only makes it stronger, like weight resistance makes your muscles stronger, resistance to pain makes it stronger as well.

Jesus did not resist pain. He walked right into it and transformed that pain into a gift and release for us all.  We are no longer trapped in the horror of guilt. He went before us, and now the path is open. Open for all of us to be together in love and harmony.

But why doesn’t it feel like that now? Why is there so much heartache and strife now?

Because there is.

You must accept it before it can transform you.

It’s a mystery.

My life of misery, of self-doubt, and self-hatred has been transformed into one of gratefulness, joyfulness, love, and forgiveness, for myself and for those who hurt me. Jesus forgave and loved all the people who hurt him, because he knows that love is the true state of our being. And the paradox is that tragedy and pain are part and parcel of love and joy.

It’s a weird mystery, and one I am learning to embrace. It deepens my knowing of God, and of the glorious soup of which we are all a part.