EVERY DAY WE BECOME BETTER

                                  

A Path to Follow

Have you noticed?  Every day we become better and better.  This doesn't mean that everything is perfect. Not at all. In fact, isn't it true that your life isn't really what you expected it to be?  No one's is. 

Maybe we haven't found the right partner.  Or the right job.  Maybe my best friend has breast cancer.  Or I do.  Maybe I never really knew my dad.  Or have a sibling who died.  Maybe someone we love is chronically depressed.  Or on parole, or in jail.  Wow!  These are the everyday problems of everyday people--you, me, us.  And I've only named a fraction.  We can all list life situations we weren't counting on.  Some good, too. I live in a house in the woods, which I never planned on.  I became a lawyer, which I didn't predict either.     

For the hard things, is there a silver lining?  Well, no.  Sometimes all we can do is wade through.  But this is also true.   That every day we become better and better.  You know the saying, "This too shall pass?"  Well, no, again.  Objective facts don't pass.  My friend may die of cancer. A person I love may remain imprisoned by mental illness.  It may be too late for this or that. Time for amends may have passed. Some things can't be changed, or at least not by us.

BUT. . . EVERYTHING CAN BE MADE BETTER.  Healing is as much a part of life as suffering. What does pass is our anxiety, our despair, our whatever-emotion-is-keeping-us-down.  Time, counseling, prayer, perhaps medication, or just new circumstances--all these and more make us better and better at being the person we need to be.  God is on our side, always.  Our friends are on our side.  We are on our side.  There is Good News, there are good people and there are good things everywhere.  We not only bloom where we are planted, we bloom in spite of almost every adverse condition we can imagine.

So, have you become someone you never thought you would be?  A single parent? Divorced? Never married? Fighting an illness? Well-to-do or struggling?  A person who has survived a loss beyond all contemplation. Or someone with a good marriage or remarriage, a successful career.  A grandparent?  And I bet you're doing well at being that person.  I bet you have done things that have made your life better, and the lives of others too:  gotten an education, helped raise a child, helped those less fortunate, crafted a job and a life, cherished those who love you, never given up, had fun, been awesome. . ..  Am I right?  Am I right?