So many I’ve talked with over the years have conceded that they fear they’re not living the life they feel called to live. Whether by trauma or circumstance they feel robbed of the opportunities they could have or should have had. Somehow there is a sharp dissonance between the life a person’s soul feels they should be living and the life they are living.
Sometimes it’s for a season, sometimes it’s rather indefinite, and for many it lasts for years, if not a lifetime. And yet, somehow there’s an adjustment, even if triggers for trauma rewind the clock to ground zero occasionally. These moments are genuinely unfortunate. Nobody should have to face the indignity of shame for injustice foisted upon them, let alone the overbearing threat of it occurring should triggering occur, which it does from time to time. Nobody. And nobody should have to live out a nonsensical situation that ponders, “What kind of God allows good people to suffer?”
But such is life for many. So many people, and so many women as it would seem, but not only women, face the diabolical preponderance of being out of control of their own lives.
We can wonder why all our lives and never get one iota closer to discovering the more important question, ‘how’? Exactly how do you take a life that you feel shouldn’t be yours and make that life your own despite your abject dislike for such a life?
That is such a commanding question. We may take our lead from the likes of Helen Keller, plagued with horrendous sensory disabilities and yet a legendary writer and poet, or even those who chose to deny themselves all modern comfort, like Mother Teresa. But these comparisons are inevitably unhelpful for applying to an otherwise normal life that somehow feels like it’s failing to live up to one person’s expectations—the person living that life.
Comparisons aren’t helpful. Trusting justice to come is also rather unpromising, unless we believe upon an eternal reckoning. But none of us truly want to wait that long.
When you’re living the life you never expected to live it’s presumptuous for anyone to advise you on how you ought to live your life. When for some reason, and in many cases it’s one reason—usually that caused a chain reaction of unfortunate events—life has turned against you, and there is no changing these facts or your situation, because there is not, a dilemma is faced. There are no pat answers, and clichés just won’t cut it.
When you’re living the life you never expected to live you can call on God to institute justice at some point, and it would be appropriate to do so, but many times this leads us to the futility of toying with revenge. Suddenly we’re in a dicey situation. We cavort with things beyond our control trusting that anger is a way forward, without accounting for the fact that often within anger is the effect of self-sabotage.
Do I have the answer within this article? No, I don’t. But I’m interested in pursuing the topic further. I’m intrigued by this topic and want to keep seeking God for a way to make sense of the injustices faced by people who are living lives they never expected to live.
Perhaps as we press in on God, within the rage of injustice, accepting that things aren’t how they should be, that Jesus might draw close and whisper, “I’m with you bearing my cross as you bear yours.”
If that doesn’t feel like much of a solace, we still have the option of going back out into the cold of a justice that seeks for revenge. That’s not only hurting others, it hurts us too.
If we take the empathy-of-Jesus option, we may well find a way through the present injustice through a miraculous form of spiritual healing only Jesus can do. And that’s only accomplished by faith. At least in that is hope, and the true definition of faith is hoping confidently—the assurance of hope—in something we do not yet see.
Sow in hope despite the presence of injustice, because such hope believes upon a coming reality of peace and joy far outweighing our circumstances.
Ride that wave of hope, despite your suffering, faltering as you will, all the way into the beach of peace and joy.
Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash
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