The ways of the world...

Well, sometimes there are just no words to describe the disgusting, perverse, and injust things, events, or circumstances we encounter or create in this life. I have encountered personal brokenness greater then ever before in the past couple years of my life, as you may have gathered from some my other posts (if you've read them). Prior to this, I've become well acquainted with the more grotesque, unfortunate, and disturbing realities of life through providing nursing care in the Emergency Department setting for the better portion of the first 12 years of my nursing career.

Regardless of when and where you're exposed to the evil or unfair dynamics in the world, you can't go through life without being affected by them somehow. It might be a stillbirth or miscarriage, an abusive relationship, traumatic event (of any kind), unexpected (or not) death of a loved one, sudden diagnosis of a serious, terminal, or chronic health condition that changes the whole trajectory of your life, or any other unfathomable circumstances that disrupts or disturbs what you thought about, hoped or expected for the future in this life.

Anyway you look at it, you can't make it fair, take away the pain, or pretend it doesn't change reality moving forward. Denial is certainly a normal part of the grief process. So is anger, sadness or depression, and bargaining or attempting to rationalize. You may go in and out of these stages many times on your journey to the acceptance of reality and the fulfillmentof the grief cycle or process. The longer you fight the process of mourning, the longer it may take to get through it. (I know this all too well.)

Embracing the mourning process is also not fun because it's painful. However, postponing or prolonging it also benefits you very little because the pain my be delayed or extended. Each individual has their own unique journey in the processing of grief and letting go of something hoped for that can't be obtained or the loss of something or someone we hold dear.

Expecting it to look or feel a certain way is rarely helpful either. The process of mourning may look different depending on the season of life and under what circumstance the grief is triggered. Just because you've walked the road of sorrow and mourning previously, doesn't mean it will look the same the next time it's encountered. You may have thought you'd reached acceptance when you find a bitter root of anger arise or tears of sadness flow

when a memory came up in conversation or thought.

What I was really intending to get at with this post is that none of us are immune to the depravity of mankind. We all have free will to choose to use our lives as a blessing or a curse to those around us. None of us can fairly or rightly judge the motive or intention of others in their choices, behaviors or actions, seemingly negative or positive!

What may seem abundantly clear to one person from their perspective, may give another person an entirely different or opposite impression. Without walking in someone else's shoes or seeing from their mind. 's eye the circumstance from their vantage point, we may never get full understanding, and even then we might not.

There will be many times in life when we don't get our questions fully answered as to why things didn't work out "our way!" Accepting that may be one of the most liberating things we could ever do! I don't mean to sound overly pessimistic, but knowing to expect certain things from the brokenness of humanity and the ways of the world can give our hearts a strange peace, and possibly, the ability to surrender to or embrace the process more graciously.