Life Hurts

Life. Life hurts. It's just a fact, pure and simple. It can hurt more if you have expectations that it will hurt less, and it can hurt less if you learn how to numb it. I'm not one for low expectations, and don't necessarily agree that having low expectations is the way to go. For, as I look back through history and single out the men and women who have walked wisely and made a real, positive difference in this world, I see that their greatest moments were not ones marked by "low expectations."

Thus, I feel that it's not low expectations that makes one's life happy and tolerable, but it is instead the person or object of whom or to which one puts their expectations in. Think about it.

And as you think you may realize that everyone and everything will at one point let you down, so you may contrive, what is the point of having an expectation high enough for it to plummet to disappointment? And that's why I like Psalm 62:5: "My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. " For, I am a person with big expectations and grandiose dreams...I am also a person who has suffered much disappointment. But it's all in where the expectation is placed, and I have learned to not put my expectations in things, especially in woman or man, for they will fail sooner than later. I know this well. I fail myself everyday.

Expectations are good, it's just the placement of them that are wrong. Because, as we all already know:

Life hurts.

Seasons. Right? Seasons. To everything there is a season. And we love the seasons, even those of you here from your golden land of California enjoy the turn of the seasons. Perhaps you wish that winter wouldn't stay so long, but you cannot deny your sense of childhood wonder when the seasons change. And such is life on the internal world; it weathers seasons.

Seasons are what make life interesting, and we love the seasons of change, even if it is only subconsciously. We all enjoy some sort of change, even if we try to argue that we don't. For a life without seasons is like all music having the exact same beat. No matter how masterfully done the composition is, at some point you will come to dread it, as the monotonous rhythm will no longer soothe, excite, or enrage....it will bore. And boredom is the death of living. Really living.

In and out of the seasons we go, sometimes willingly, sometimes dragged through the mire; but on we go. On I go. I will be glad for this season of pain to turn into spring, to bring forth new life, fresh air, and only the occasional storm. How long can ones' dark season be?

It is in the harsh times of life that we see who we are, how strong or weak our character is. It is through my sufferings being intensified over the past few years that I have truly become acquainted with who I am. Sometimes I, the she in me, has made me proud, very proud. More frequently, she makes me cringe, especially the confused and sometimes raging beast she has shown me she can be. But I am glad to know her, as she strengthens me, even in her bad times--she strengthens me in that I see who she can become. And this revelation is of great value, for it brings new light, new understanding, for the future. It helps to set new parameters, to know of what to beware of. For, one doesn't need to set up a fence to protect oneself from a kitten, but to protect oneself from a tiger is worthy of some forethought and strategic planning. It is not our strengths that we must fear, but our weaknesses.

We are never as good as we should be, yet never as bad as we could be. True?

Perhaps we vacillate between these two parameters of good and bad, depending on the season of life we are in. I know I do. And it bothers me. Why vacillate in the bad times? What does that say of my character? But oh, wait, there's me and my expectations again. I give myself no room for failure. None. And then I am disappointed with myself when I fail.

I am sick and wrong. And I know very well that:

Life hurts.

Yes, life hurts. But oddly enough, in pain we are united. Through pain and suffering we reach into the depths of each other, and compassion is born. Just like children: from the long gestation period of aches, pain, vomit, and fatigue, then through the wrenching I-want-to-pull-out-my-own-hair pains of childbirth comes something of great beauty; a new life. Precious. (And if you birthed your children with numbing agents, you have truly missed out on PAIN!) Through pain, we are united to our new babe; they are of great worth to us. All great things in life are worth the pain, are they not?

Let's think about that. Pain for a purpose is worth fighting for and enduring for. But pain with no purpose may very well be the death of our very souls; bacteria on our hope, limits on our faith, a total rejection of love. Yet life will bring both types of pain, will it not? But we have a choice. We can choose our pain.

Breaking the law and being thrown in prison brings pain, but that is pain that is chosen--pain coupled to consequence. Perhaps this is "bad" pain. Loving a person for the majority of your life, then having your very heart ripped from your chest as they (painfully) die, perhaps this is "good" pain; pain that came from something pure--pain that came with a season; pain with purpose.

What can I say? I am no great thinker, theologian, or scholar. All I know is:

Life hurts.

And what do we Americans really know of pain, anyway? We may think we know a thing or two as we live in a luxury the rest of the world cannot fathom. Amidst all our toys, gadgets, food, and worshiping of the god of personal comfort, we bring on ourselves much pain. Idiots, we are. So consumed with ourselves that we don't see a larger picture; our wailing over a splinter in our thumb shames us in the naked face of reality.

Life hurts. Sometimes from our own doing. Sometimes not. But overall:

Life hurts.