Life Now, Loneliness & the Way Life Used to Be

Life, the way it was

We can certainly pine after

Balancing loneliness, and

The absence of laughter.

Reminiscing over good times

The case of missing friends

Some answers are AWOL

Then, suddenly, all hope ends.

What can’t now be brought back

We lament causing grief

The experience of loss

And there seems no relief!

Contending with life now

On the backdrop of bliss

The way things used to be

And now there’s this.

How will it improve

I really must ask?

This question alone

Is my God-purposed task.

***

I write this as a memoir of an old life, a life I now strangely cherish the memory of; for the courage it took to live that lonely existence of rebuilding what had become a broken life.

There are times when we are situated in a no-man’s-land, where the present and future are dark in comparison with a past that has now vanished. From such a place, the past cannot be redeemed. It’s gone. And accepting such a depressing reality isn’t making it better.

How is a good, worthy, or decent future to be made out of a present that offers no hope?

The answer is faith, which is a confidence on loan.

Faith gives us the ability to believe for a good future, because a good future is created when we believe we have the ability to create it, through faith.

Faith cannot disappoint us. Sure, times cannot be replicated. We cannot jump into a time machine or pretend like it’s ten or twenty years ago. But we can cast forth our vision for something not yet experienced; something new and perhaps somewhat better. Imagine something better coming to fruition.

Try not to be pessimistic. There is nothing to lose and so much to gain for the faith it costs to have confidence on loan. When we have such confidence on loan we quickly find out that we produce it by trusting God; it costs nothing.

***

When life now is not a shadow of its former glory we are easily depressed. Neither the present nor the future offers any hope. What we need is faith to believe there is more enjoyment of life ahead. Faith doesn’t disappoint because it just keeps believing until it’s vindicated. When we take a chance on faith, and we give our lives over to it, we are not disappointed.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.