Hopelessness need not be a condition without end. . .

There are innumerable personal situations that can cause creeping hopelessness.  You have been diagnosed with a terminal illness with only months to live or a parent dies unexpectedly.  Maybe your troubled teenager is on the run again and you feel you have no where to turn. The job you have loved for years suddenly gets cut with no forewarning.  Or the boss who always understood your personal struggles and insecurities and willingly worked with you, gets transferred.  Or the situation that every one dreads, your relationship partner informs you that he wants to leave the commitment you had believed was life-long.

It’s easy in any of these cases to fall into despair.  And when some one says, “This too shall pass,” we want to scream.  But we never need to feel hopeless.  Our Higher Power is always present. We want the situation that has caused our pain to change, however.  Now.  We want the diagnosis to be incorrect.  We want the parent to remain alive, indefinitely.  We want our child to be safe and asleep in her bedroom.  We want the job to not only be secure but we want the promotion we had dreamed about.  And we want the “love of our life” to say he or she is in this relationship for the long haul, through think and thin.  That’s what seems fair, after all.

But life has a different way of showing up, doesn’t it?   In fact, life shows up as it should.    Our lessons are many and intentional.  They have not come to us accidentally.  We have been part of the selection process whether we know that or not.  That’s why we never need to feel hopeless.  Our Higher Power is and always has been present. Cherishing that as our reality can change the way we see every situation in our life.  The difficult ones are designed to stretch us, to help us reach out to others for support, understanding and wisdom, and to God.  The joyful ones are meant to be shared so that our traveling companions can appreciate that life does give all of us moments free from turmoil.

The more we trust that our Higher Power will always do for us what we can’t do for ourselves; the more we realize that the myriad experiences that are calling to us are our “dancing lessons” being paid for by God; the less anxiety we will feel that we haven’t been prepared for whatever might be next on our agenda.  Rest assured.  We have been prepared.  Nothing happens that hasn’t been divinely ordered.  Our lives are never hopeless. We are in the right place, at the right time.  Walking with the people who are necessary to our journey.  And our Higher Power is and always has been present. Even when we were certain we had been forgotten, that was not the truth.

Throughout this week I will use as my morning and evening meditation the phrase: I need never feel hopeless.  My Higher Power is and always has been present. The cracks in the pavement will become smooth when I rely on this power for all my answers.