Life's Dirty Little Secret

I have this plant in my home; it is called Silver Queen. It requires very little to keep it flourishing and a beautiful accent to the main room in my house. I liken the requirements for this plant to what my life requires to keep me going every day. Sunlight is a vital vitamin D requirement, but its warmth and beauty are what makes me smile on a tough day. I love the sun; in fact, I relish and crave it. Life throws many wrenches into our path, and I believe if I just keep plucking away at the brown spots’ life keeps attaching to my soul that life gets lighter and less difficult to breathe and keep me flourishing. Every life requires a certain level of water, but in this case we all require a certain amount of added positivity, a nice level of encouragement, appreciation, respect, and affection to keep us moving forward and in the right direction.

The dirty little secret about life is that we all falter and we are all burdened with something in our lives. Not one of us is without faults and no one is perfect. I am not even sure any one of us sees perfectly eye to eye on the idea way to live life and I am for certain that we will not agree whole heartedly on the politic sphere in this lifetime.

What I know for sure is that life will never stop throwing us curveballs. I believe it is God’s way of seeing how well we handle them and how much it will take to get us to reach for him and have faith that he exists. When will we realize that we can’t manage in this evil world without him guiding us. Life has thrown me some hefty curve balls in my lifetime already, but the one I am dealing with today, almost seems the toughest yet.

My father was diagnosed with dementia, and I have been handling the effects so far, but recently he called me in tears, because he himself is feeling the symptoms get worse for him. The most difficult thing about this disease so far is hearing my father cry in fear of losing himself and his ability to be the man he once was.  If I am honest, I don’t think anything will ever get more difficult than that, except perhaps the day he no longer knows who I am. It is hard to hear myself pray that he will pass before he suffers, but I am not sure that I can bear watching him suffer.

Like my plant, I don’t require much in this life, but I do know that the love of my children and my husband are what has kept me going these last five years and my father has been my cheerleader and support through so many of the curve balls I have been pitched.

I know life was never meant to be easy. It was God’s punishment on behalf of Adam and Eve to live without perfection. We have been given the opportunity to find our faith in God and ask for him to save us so that one day we can come home to him and enter those pearly gates of paradise. Life is cruel, but none of us must be. Life is viscous and vindictive, but we can choose to be better.  Life hurts, it rips our hearts into pieces, but there are moments within in that make our heart swell three sizes with love and pride.

My faith tells me that I will get through the heartache I am feeling and that I must be strong for my father, but my internal mind is cursing everything to do with this evil disease and how it affects my dad. My soul is aching and it feels shattered to the core, because I can’t fix this, I can’t make it better with a band-aid or a kiss. I can’t take it away or stop it from getting worse. Some days I wonder what I did to live under such a curse to love so strongly through addiction, through loss, and through diseases that I believe the devil had to disperse.

I’m not angry, I’m tired. I‘m not giving up, I’m heartbroken and feeling challenged. I am not feeling lost but instead found in my faith that God will see me through. I know it won’t lessen the hurt I feel, it won’t make the process any easier, but it will lighten the load to know God is carrying it with me.

Life’s dirty little secret? We all may think we are nothing like one another, but we all suffer in this life. Maybe not the same way, not over the same reasons, but we all suffer, we all feel, we all hurt, and we all need human comfort, affection, love, and appreciation to see us through the difficult times. We all crave the sunlight and the warmth of the human touch from a caring heart.

All of these requirements will keep you and I flourishing, but for me the hand of God is what makes my shimmer continue to shine.