I still had my own self

For the first time ever, I feel depressed after coming back from a trip and don’t know why. I guess the expectations were not met. The trip was not a vacation by any means! Daniel was at work every single day. Considering that we had a place to stay we still managed to spend over $16,000 dollars in less than two months and that is only what one credit card says. Depression does not run in my family so this is a little weird and I am trying to figure out what is wrong with me?  I told my husband how sad I feel for a child who has had a change of heart, my daughter and son in law and loves ones who are sick (I am tired of this horrible pandemic) family members not doing so hot economically, the poor people of Haiti and the situation in Afghanistan. All that has got me down. Lucky for me, today I came across this message, “I still had my own self.” 

 

“If we know who and what we are, we can lose virtually everything and still feel whole, unbroken, and empowered.

 

In my experience, to ‘still have our own selves’ means understanding the nature of the power we wield over our own lives. It means entirely accepting the limits of our power while also pursuing and embracing the full scope of our power. 

 

Our power is NOT that we can make everything go the way we want it to. Rather, our power lies in our ability, no matter what happens to us, to ensure a positive outcome. We can make sure our experiences ultimately edify us and bring us growth.

 

To ‘still have our own selves’ is to make sure our experiences do not happen in vain. At the very least — or maybe the very most — we can learn from our experiences. And, having assigned an accurate, useful, and empowering meaning to the experiences of the past, we can carry our newfound wisdom forward to create a meaningful future of personal growth. 

 

To ‘still have our own selves’ means understanding that WE get to assign meaning to our own experiences. I personally think it’s fruitless to ask God, “Why?” That is the question that WE get to answer. We get to work WITH — not against — our experiences to unfold new gifts and power in our lives. We get to interpret, with patience and wonder, the meaning of the things that happen to us. We get to decide how we end up telling the stories of our lives, and what wisdom we bring to our stories. As we make the most of every experience, we get to make sure our stories don’t shackle us in victimhood, but set us free to live our best lives. And the stories we tell can offer others the wisdom to do the same … if we see ourselves, not as helpless victims, but as agents with power to act and become, regardless of our circumstances.

 

If we know that we ‘still have our own selves,’ we necessarily have hope. We don’t talk about hope as much as we talk about faith and charity, but there’s a reason we are commanded to have hope. With hope, we can thrive even in the most adverse circumstances. With hope, we can extract all the available value from the moment...because we know the pain will eventually pass, but the lessons and their resulting growth will be ours forever. 

 

With hope, we see more broadly. Our perspective exceeds the ‘here and now.’ We embrace a bigger picture and it becomes part of who we are.

 

With hope, we feel more profoundly. We aren’t afraid to experience what’s before us because we know that we are ok and that we will continue to be ok. 

 

By seeing and feeling more, we grow more...and personal growth is a fundamental purpose of life. 

With hope, we can have confidence in the ongoing promise that ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’ (Romans 8:28). ALL things. There are no exceptions. 

 

With hope, we recognize that our weaknesses create the very circumstances we need to experience in order to overcome those weaknesses. Hope also prompts us to reject shame and embrace these opportunities to grow.

 

With hope, we know that anything that happens to us — and anything we bring upon ourselves — can only make us stronger...because even if other things are taken from us, we can’t be robbed of our capacity to learn something useful from our lives as we strive to become more than we are. Thus, hope and ‘having our own selves’ allow us to turn loss into gain. Truly, no outside force can diminish us if we know that we still have our own selves.” Martha Jane Cannary, a.k.a. Calamity Jane

 

Now that’s profound.

 

Con amor,

Vero