Jan Willis : Hope and Healing

It’s Just Life

Posted on September 8, 2021

Psalm 31:14-15

But as for me, I trust in you, O Lord. I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand….

In the movie, Tombstone, a dying Doc Holliday quips to a depressed Wyatt Earp, “There’s no normal life, Wyatt, there’s just life. Get on with it.”[][1]

Different circumstances than those we expect tumble uninvited into our lives. Not even identical twins live identical lives. Life unfolds sometimes as we hope. Other times it plays out completely opposite of what we desire.

I didn’t plan miscarrying at three months in my pregnancy. I never expected my father-in-law backing his car over my two-year-old daughter. I didn’t schedule  breast cancer into my life. We don’t want others to live with diabetes, lupus, epilepsy, or clinical depression. We don’t imagine our loved ones dying from Covid, a car accident, or drowning. All over the world, everyday others experience these same tragedies.

There is no vaccination for heartache and hardship. We live in a world where we and others will encounter painful circumstances. But, praise God! He puts living in perspective from an eternal, holy point of view. He sympathizes with us because He lived through pain and suffering as well. Therefore, His loving kindnesses never cease towards us. He never waivers in His compassion towards us.

He does not desire for us to suffer. Nor does He abandon us in our times of need. Our hope and healing, our living, rests in the God who loves us with an unconditional love and never-ending compassion. His love strengthens us to endure the difficulties we encounter. This life is temporary. We can look to living a future of eternal joy with the Lord.

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[1] Tombstone

Cosmatos, G. P. (Director). (1993). Tombstone [Motion Picture].

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[i] Image by Adam Tumidajewicz, Pixabay