TO THE ONE WHO"S WORLD IS FALLING APART
Life sucks. It truly does. Don’t get me wrong it has some of
the most amazing moments in history but there are days when life sucker punches
you in the gut and you find yourself wondering if things will ever be the same,
if you’ll ever get past this. This post is for those days.
To the one who’s world is falling apart.
Life sucks.
I still remember the first day life killed me. It was the 18th
September 2008 when I woke up to the sound of my mum softly crying in the other
room. I remember Dad calling us all into their room and telling us that Grandad
had passed away the night before. Honestly I didn’t believe him after all it
was only two weeks earlier that he had been up in Auckland for my 10th
birthday giving me a Crunchie bar and telling me to not eat it all at once. It
didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t make sense.
I’m not trying to say I understand how it feels to lose
someone. I was ten and my grandparents lived in Nelson, leaving me with my
family in Auckland. Because of this they were just people who sent birthday
cards and Christmas presents who we visited every two years. So, I didn’t
really know him. Is it possible to miss someone you barely even knew??
I think so much we focus on the material loses of people. All the death, the sickness, the break-ups and we just push to the side the repercussions of that. How people feel after it happens or even after it doesn’t happen. We forget that one in six adults in New Zealand will be diagnosed with a mental health problem. We’re so wrapped up in ourselves that we don’t see the girl almost in tears in the corner because her head is filled with self-doubt and voices telling her that she’s completely wrong. We don’t see the boy pulling on a mask of toughness because on the inside he’s completely numb. We don’t pick up on these things until it’s too late.
A couple of weeks ago, I was out for coffee with one of my friends when she asked me why I had skipped a couple of weeks of uni the week before (we were meant to meet up then) and I just said how I really didn’t feel like it. She then looked at me and told me that it wasn’t good enough and that people were relying on me to be at uni. I completely get where she was coming from, and if it were different circumstances she would have been totally right. I’ve been thinking a lot about that the past couple of days about what she said, and what I should have said in response instead of just sitting there like a child being told off by a grumpy parent. I just wanted to scream. She was sick of my countless excuses and flakiness and nothing I could say would remedy that.
You know when you were four you had your favourite toy, and
whenever you couldn’t find the toy or your mum took it away you’d burst into
tears and for a couple of moments your tiny world was shattered into bazillions
of pieces all over the floor. Honestly as we grow older we’re the same. Except that now its not about a toy. Honestly I wish it still was because the adult world is freaking hard. There
are so many days that I find myself curled up, bawling my eyes out wondering
why on earth I have to go through this life. The hard one. Why can’t I just
have a normal life like everyone else?? But then I talk to people and I
find out that they’re struggling too. Maybe they don’t have a 6ft bald eagle
trying to peck off their head but they have relationship problems, they’re
struggling with study, they lost themselves and they don’t know where to go
with life next.
“Maybe you lost someone you never expected you would lose. Maybe you lost yourself. That’s the worst. When you have bad days that just wont let up. I just hope you look in the mirror and remind yourself of what you are and who your not. You are not your mistakes. You are not damaged goods or muddy from your failed explorations. You are not the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you. You are the product of the lessons you’ve learnt. You are wiser because you went through something terrible. And you are the person who survived a bunch of rainstorms and kept walking. I now believe that pain makes you stronger. And I believe that walking through a bunch of rainstorms gets you clean.” - Taylor Swift.
Pain makes you stronger. What doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger. I was scrolling through Pinterest the other night when I found this verse...
Now I sort of read that and was like okay well who’s not crumbling?? Because I have days where I just cant get out of bed I’m so broken. So I pulled out my Bible and looked for the actual Isaiah 54:10 to get some context for the verse and I found that actually that was just a paraphrase of the actual verse which said:
"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you."Wow! That low key blew my mind. In context God's in the middle of promising the Israelite's what he will give them after their Babylonian exile is over. But it still relates to us. Even though our superficial human worlds can shatter and fade away God still remains. His love is still there and that's a hope we can hold onto. So yes, life sucks, but we have an awesome God who loves us through it all.
Til next time,
XO lavinia