It Is Well with My Soul

It is well with my soul.....

Just saying these words make me take a big sigh. I'm sighing because to get to where this is who I am all of the time would be amazingly peaceful. I'm also sighing because it feels like an impossible goal to reach, it's a bigger mountain to climb than I have the strength to do.

I have been thinking about this concept for a while, and recently it has been on my mind a lot. How do you actually get to the point where most of the things that are going on in our mortal journey sit well with our souls?

Maybe it's just me, maybe everyone is pretty close to this and I've missed something important. But lately it feels like there are a lot of things that aren't "well with my soul" and I'm struggling.

People we love dying, addictions, divorce, chronic illness, mental health issues, trauma, abuse, suicide.... whatever it is that is going on in our lives right now that is hard. How do we reconcile our souls to be "okay" with whatever life is giving us?

Maybe "okay" is not even the right word to be using. How can anyone be "okay" with any of this? Maybe a better word for it is "acceptance".  How do we accept life just as it is?

To find acceptance I feel that we need to look for understanding. We need to look at why things are happening. Why people are making the decisions they make, why something hurts us so much, why am I reacting the way that I am? The better we understand, the easier it is for us to find acceptance.

Finding understanding is really hard though.... painfully hard sometimes. It forces us to step outside and think outside the box. To really look at things from another perspective. Then we need to feel things from these different perspectives. To realize that our view & understanding of the world is specific to only us. There is no way we could ever really know what someone else is thinking or feeling. Even if we have been through the same experience, it's still different for everyone. Everyone's lives are different, their thoughts & perceptions are different. Every experience is different for everyone and we all handle and react differently to everything.

Then there is also the part where I know that God could change all of this in a heartbeat & he doesn't. He literally has the power to take away all of our pain and suffering. Some days understanding and acceptance of this concept are hard for me.... if I'm being honest, most days this concept is hard for me. This isn't always well with my soul.

Why do good people have to get sick and die? Why do people have to suffer at the hands of other people? Why can't we understand just how much we are loved and really know our own self worth? Why can't God just heal all of his children? Why, Why, Why..... if you dwell on these questions too long you will eventually go crazy.

It's not that God isn't willing to heal his children, it's that we need these experiences to help us get to the understanding and the acceptance. This is really the only way we can learn anything. God's healing comes to us as we are learning to understand the chaos around us. He's teaching us empathy and compassion. He is teaching us to see the world through his eyes. As we learn to accept all of the things that are happening and that is out of our control, we take on the characteristics of God, and he helps us heal.

I feel that our purpose here on this earth is to become like God. We need to learn to understand God. Learn to understand his will and his specific plan for us. Then we need to accept what is expected of us. True and lasting healing comes to us the closer we become to being like God.

Only then can we fully understand and accept the harshness of this life. Even if we don't like what is happening and we wish things were different. Even if we feel that this life is too hard to navigate at times. We can at least gain the knowledge God wants us to have so that at some point in the middle of the mess we call life, we can say "it is well with my soul!"

I don't know if any of this makes sense.... It feels like a jumbled mess that came bursting out of my brain. I have a lot going on in my mind right now & this bit felt like it was trying the hardest to escape. I hope this is helpful to someone other than myself.

Take care of yourselves,

Jess