Faith Filled Friday

Hello and welcome back to Faith Filled Friday my friends! 

I have given a lot of thought recently to the grief I tend to carry for so much of the things that have happened in my life. I always hear people say things like: "You just have to will yourself through this; you're depressed; this is not healthy for you." 

These quips lend themselves to helping me feel that people don’t understand that sometimes the pain of grief itself is not always something that one day is gone for people like me. I can't just un-see, un-feel, de-skin it. The scars run too deep and I carry these scars day in, day out. I run the gamut as I learn to live with them. They will never go away. 

And yet, I have come to learn that I can surely navigate and transform our ways in which we handle this grief, depression and sadness. We all can. We can grow from them. It's not that we are ever victorious over these things; it's that we learn how to grow the seeds that survive the storm, the flooding, the winds of trials and troubles... to harvest, feed and share with others through their storms. 

I can't tell you how many times I have seen people trade their pain for some kind of temporary relief. Call it the bottom of a bottle, the needle to a vein, the cutting, and even sexual escapades. Why can't we live in harmony by feeling our way through this pain, to learn from it, be at utter peace with it? It is not for others to paint it on our canvas like it's something to be ashamed of. It's not that I can control it that makes me a better person... but that I can ultimately live with it and because I do, I can learn from it. 

I refuse to just ignore it. Doing so only means I will repeat my own patterns and live by the destructive traits started in early childhood. God's love means that we can do more than survive, that we can learn to thrive and step up to help others. Getting accustomed to a different mindset is most difficult, but we can start by telling ourselves it is ok to feel pain, but to not be shackled by it. We must not only love ourselves simply, but diversify our way of healing. 

Horrific pain doesn't have to be an anchor, but more a set of wings we can share with others in their time of grief by leaping from our own nest.

Much love everyone... God bless

John Tam