I can tell you exactly how you feel. You feel stuck in life, you cannot go back in time and you cannot advance forward. Everything you knew changed the moment you got the news. You looked back in your past and think about all the decisions you have made in your life that lead up to the point you found out. You analyze every choice you made and try to think about how things would be different had you made a different choice. You question every good thing that has happened to you in the past and try to wish it away if only things right now were different.
You question your role in their lives, did you contribute to this? Did you not live up to God's expectations as a friend, a daughter, a sister, a Christian? You question God and why he is bringing this to you. Did you not honor Him properly? Did you not pray enough? Did you not pray for the right things? Were you selfish in your religion, using God when you needed Him and when things were going well forget Him until the next time you needed Him? Should you have attended Mass more? Should you have been more involved with your religious community?
Are you not a good citizen? A good community representative? A good friend? Were you there when you were needed before this happened? Should you have noticed sooner what you feel you now missed. Could you have done something sooner had you reacted to your gut instinct that something was not right? Would you have been able to prevent this tragic moment if you paid better attention? Do you deserve to be loved the way you are loved because you think you should of been able to do more? Are you deserving of having the friendship you have, was it a lopsided friendship where she gave more to you then you did to her?
You feel left out and lonely often getting anxious because you have a void you cannot feel and you do not know how to make it go away? You feel sheltered from the news, good and bad, because others are making judgments and statements that you have yet to hear. You feel you are not being of any use or support and others have stepped up in your place because you are needed elsewhere. You want to be two places at once so you feel unsettled, wondering if you are where you need to be.
If you go to be there you feel you should be here. If you stay here, you feel there is where you should be. There is not winning, no flip of the coin can decide this for you. You get angry because you are stuck, you cannot move on. Angry at God because he has one holding on and angry at God because the other cannot be there for you in your time of need. This is not what you expected at the end of a life, to be without your friends support and not being able to support that friend.
Do you continue to pray? To trust in God? Do you keep the faith and trust in the Lord? How much damage are you doing to your spiritual side by being angry and confused and untrusting at this time? You feel incredibly lonely and out of touch with God, taking it personal that you are stuck between a dying mother and a friend who needs you. You feel this is being done TO YOU, that it is your fault, somehow, that two people you love with your whole heart are suffering at the same time. You struggle inside not knowing what to do or where to be. You find yourself wishing for things you know you do not want, one way or another, so you can move on because there is no turning back.
You try to remember all the good times in the past, the memories that carry you through, to avoid thinking about the future. You refuse to live in the moment even though that is where you are stuck, You cannot help thinking about tomorrow and what that day will bring. Will your struggle be solved? Will you get the call, and from whom will it come. You think the worse possible scenario as you pray for the best possible news.
You want to put this in God's hands but you feel He has already let you down. You struggle with what to hope for, what to wish for, because you have lost faith in it ever turning out to be what you desire to see as the outcome. You struggle alone because you feel that you would let down even more people if they knew how you felt, if they knew what you were thinking. You walk as if you have all the power and you hope that no one realizes you have none. You beat yourself up all day long because you know you are as helpless as you are stuck in time.
I know this, because I have often been there. The details are different but the situation is the same. We all have that demon that lurks near us when our guard is down, when our faith is failing us. We all face these questions in our lives at one time or another. We want someone to blame and when we cannot find someone to blame we blame ourselves and include God in our demise. It doesn't make us feel any better and it doesn't change our situation but we find comfort in the blame because it gives us hope. Hope for an explanation on why this is happening. Yes, it is something we are lacking in our lives that has brought this struggle to us.
We lack faith. Faith in God, trust in God, hope in God and his plan. This is the time in our lives that we should remember what God has given us and where God will take us when all is said and done. As much as we want to change the course, change the direction in which life has taken us, that is not our choice. Our choice is how we accept it and how we use it to reconnect with God and try and understand it is less about us and more about Him.
God brings us to Him through the struggles we face. We build our faith as we work through times of tragedy. We build our trust in His plan when we let go of the past, live for today, and have hope for a better tomorrow. Love you Jewels, my friend, #WeAreNotQuitters
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you:
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.
- John 14:27
