Sadness

I'm feeling sad today. I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't go back to sleep.  I couldn't shut my brain down.  And my brain was thinking sad things. "Letting" go things.  I've realized that, by the grace of God, I have stopped obsessing over pass events, could-have-beens, things that have happened to me, things I have done wrong...essentially, the past.  I am very grateful for that.  But there is always the future to obsess over, right?

And while obsessing over the future, I have also realized that while I may have overcome the temptation to endlessly ponder what was, some of the painful effects of what was are colouring my perception of the future.  Fear of rejection.  Fear of loss.  Fear of not being perfect enough. Fear of other people's fear.  Even, and oh my dear God please forgive me even as I "say" this outloud, fear that the good things that are happening are just a set-up for a huge and disastrous fall.  

The past week has been wonderful gift of affirmation, encouragement, a clearer glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel...why do I always feel like I have to pay for these times with sadness?

And still, I am grateful.  I am growing.  I realize what a gift it is, not to be forced to repeatedly live through the trauma of the past in my mind.  I don't even know when I stopped doing it.  I am reading "Practicing the Presence of God", and Brother Lawrence talks about failing God, and how each time he became aware of his weakness and failures, he simply turned to God, confessed not just his faults, but his utter inability to overcome them without the power of God's grace in his heart.  I have been doing that, as well.  After all, what else is there to do? Have you ever tried to stop thinking of something?  It's an exercise in defeat and frustration.  I have been helpless, and in my helplessness, God has been strong, and good.

It is the hope from what God has done that gives me strength to trust Him for what He will do.  I know that I am in a process, the process of living, and loving God with more and more of who I am each day.  The process of learning to trust God in deeper and deeper ways.  And the process of learning that sometimes life hurts.  A lot.  And that's okay. 

My birthday is coming up. On Thanksgiving week-end.  And I remember the pain of spending my birthday last year preparing for the death of my mother.  Life hurts.  I remember eating St. Hubert's chicken at the picnic tables with our family outside the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre on Thanksgiving, with Mum in a wheel chair, nibbling on french fries because that was all that she wanted. Life hurts.  I cherish the scarf that she gave me for my birthday that day. Life hurts.  And yesterday, I wore that scarf to the funeral of my friends' mother.  Life hurts.

I guess it's okay to be sad.  Although the whole "obsessing about the future" thing has to go.  And I know, it will go, the same way as the "obsessing about the past" thing went.  I'll keep bringing it to God, confessing my weakness and letting Him be strong in me.  Life may hurt, but sorrow does not have to be wrapped up in fear and trepidation.  It can be...just, sad.

Peace out, my friends.