Persevere. Live. Hope.
We are going through hard times. Some of us are scared and worried about our families, finances, and future. Dailey, we are being fed negative news. As a nation and a community, we are castrophizing. Everyday we’re given the death toll, but we’re not given the LIFE toll! Yes, people are dying, but more people are LIVING.
UNEXPECTED HAPPINESS
I became one of those familiar story lines of Christmas 2018 – I got engaged! As with anyone who gets engaged, it’s a time of happiness, laughter, optimism, dreams, and hope. However, the road to this moment was not easy for me. In fact, I was a confirmed bachelorette until August 2016 when Ron came into my life.
UTTERLY ALONE
In the mid 2000s, I married. Unfortunately, it was to a con artist. The marriage was later annulled based on fraud. It was a devastating time in my life. When the marriage ended, I was at my absolute lowest point in life. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined ending up in the depths of despair I found myself in at that time. Never would I have imagined being alone, in a place I could not freely leave, not knowing what was happening in the world around me, not knowing who still loved me, who still cared, or who believed in me. Never would I have imagined my entire future seem so bleak – nonexistent even.
EMOTIONAL PAIN CAN HURT PHYSICALLY
The emotional pain I experienced, physically hurt – I felt like I had a black hole where my heart should be, a deep gaping hole in my chest, and it physically hurt. I never knew that deep emotional pain could physically hurt as well. Never would I have imagined being so gullible and naive as to have been taken advantage of and conned. I was an attorney after all – I was smarter than that! It was a time of immense shame, embarrassment, and despair. I was utterly humiliated and completely humbled. I did not want to continue living. I had no hope.
PRESSING ON THROUGH DESPAIR
Out of the depths of my despair, I reached out for help and started counseling. I stopped practicing law to focus on getting better. Unfortunately, the mortgage company, utility services, auto loan company, and others didn’t care that my life was completely turned upside down and I couldn’t go a single day with-out crying uncontrollably.
So, I had to press on and find work – which I did at a retail store. Getting up daily, continuing my daily routine, and forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other to just keep going. The effort to get going was exhausting. However, if I wanted to be physically alive, I had to push through the exhaustion, the “I don’t want to”, the “I just want to stay in bed in a fetal position and cry”. I also spent time serving others.
SERVE OTHERS
Serving others does wonders for you – it takes the focus off your own problems. You cannot be self-absorbed and in your own pity-party (even when it’s a well-deserving one) when helping someone pick up the pieces of their own life. I volunteered in a kitchen serving volunteers working Hurricane Katrina recovery. It wasn’t glamorous. But, the beauty is that it wasn’t about what I did, it was about getting out of my own head and helping others who needed me.
I recently heard a quote from Brendon Burchard, “When your heart is here to serve, you don’t care what task is put on you.” I’ll take that quote a step further, when your heart NEEDS to serve, don’t care what task is put on you. Get out there and help. Go grocery shopping for your elderly neighbor, mow a single mom’s lawn, give food and water to the homeless, the sky is the limit on what you can do
JOURNEY THROUGH HELL
People often ask me how I got through this time in my life. How did I walk through hell and come out only a little singed? It was hard and painful. It was a daily struggle.
I was a different person to be sure. I no longer trusted people. I really didn’t trust new men coming into my life. I was more cynical and jaded particularly about love and marriage. But, I was a better judge of character and I was a heck of a lot better attorney.The answer to how: perseverance.
PERSEVERANCE
Sure, I prayed a LOT, had a tremendous amount of faith in God, and hope (after counseling) that better days were ahead. But faith and hope are not action plans. It was getting out of bed each day. It was putting one foot in front of the other to go let my dogs out, then to shower, put on makeup, and get dressed. It was using every ounce of energy and strength to go to a job for which I was overqualified, swallowing my pride, and doing what I HAD to do to pay what bills I absolutely had to pay. It was understanding that wallowing in my shame and misery accomplished nothing. It was serving others through my pain, whether it be Katrina recovery, feeding the homeless, helping trafficking victims, or searching for the missing. It was daily, moment by moment, choosing to live. It took effort to get up each day, get out of the house, and live. It was doing and being.
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
It took 10 years to meet someone like Ron. And even then, after 10 years, it was a daily struggle to fight the demons of history in my head that screamed not to trust, not to let my guard down, not to let someone into my life. I had to daily – sometimes hourly – choose to not listen to those voices.
I had to decide that my past would no longer dictate my future. If I wanted a different future, I had to do something different – let my guard down, be vulnerable, and persevere, fighting through all of the negative thoughts in my head. The fight was worth it.
HOPE
My story is unique in many ways, but we all have stories of setbacks in our lives whether from divorce, tragedy, or something else. Right now, as a society, we are battling the fear of the unknown with this virus. Emotions are real. The fear is real. But we can’t let fear overtake us.
God repeatedly tells us to not be afraid. You can make it through. Persevere. Live. Hope. Love.
PERSEVERANCE BUILDS HOPE
“..but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” ~ Roman 5:3-5
Photo courtesy of KathySmithImages
Some links may be affiliate links. We may get paid if you buy something or take an action after clicking one of these. Tanya is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.