Monday, November 4, 2013

Survival

Fall is a beautiful time of year. The trees change their color, the air is crisp and clean, and the squirrels scamper about to collect food for the winter. I was recently reminded during my devotions one morning that we don't prepare for the "winters" of our life. Winter in our life can be the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of our home or any other type of loss. So how do we survive our "winters"?

In order to survive we often have to come up with a "new normal" and it isn't easy to make changes or accept change. With the death of my father this year it has brought with it the beginning of a lot of "firsts" without him: birthdays, Sunday lunches, and soon we will experience Thanksgiving and Christmas without Dad. When my mother died 37 years ago my siblings and I had to bond together with our dad in order to survive and now we have to move forward once again.

So how do we get through all of our roller coaster emotions? My dad's favorite verse was Romans 8:28, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." At first it is hard to imagine any good coming from difficult times; however, we don't know the whole story--only God does. All we see is a little sliver.

So how do we survive? We have two choices every day. Either we pull the covers up over our heads and don't deal with the situation or we face the situation head on and turn it into a positive. This is not always an easy task but life isn't easy. How we choose to deal with our "winters" determines who we will become through Christ.

Elaine Campbell, MA, MHC

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