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Today's
Meditation:
I could use Agatha's words precisely to describe many
times in my life, times when depression has been extremely
strong and hope has been extremely weak. Those have
been times that have pushed me almost to the end of my
ability to stand them, but always in the back of my mind
was that small voice that said, "You feel horrible,
but life is good. Just stick it out." I
always argued with that voice, but it always won out.
To be alive is a grand thing. To be able to
experience this life and its gifts and its challenges for
the very short time that we're on this planet is an
amazing adventure, a wonderful experience, and a
fulfilling journey, all wrapped into one-- if we allow it
to be so. Despair will raise its head, as will
sorrow and frustration and anger and so many other things
that seem to want to push us to the point of giving up,
but we must never do so.
It's okay to be sorrowful, and it's okay to be angry and
sad and frustrated and lonely and all those other
things. They're just as much a part of human
existence as everything else is. The trick is not to
let those things define us, not to let them overwhelm us
and turn us into something that we don't want to be or
something that we shouldn't be. Agatha Christie was
one of the world's most successful authors, yet she still
went through her times of despair-- and she still came
through those times because she knew in her heart that
life itself is beautiful, no matter what kinds of feelings
try to tell us that it isn't.
Sorrow is a sign of life, a sign of feeling. A woman
once told me that we feel things like despair and
depression because we live more deeply and feel more
deeply, and the despair is one of the prices we pay for
doing so. And I have to say that if I had it to do
over again, I would prefer to live deeply and still have
to deal with the sorrow over not living deeply at all and
living sorrow-free.
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