Your Life Is Precious, and Suffering Is Necessary.
“Joy is shown on the face by contraction of the muscles, but can only be produced by love in the soul.” ~ Anonymous
Suffering is related to joy. Sometimes it is necessary. It cracks open your ego and sets your feet on a new path in life. It changes how you see yourself and enables you to grow past who you think you are. Often that towering moment, when it comes into your life, is a gift of divine intervention. It’s a moment you just don’t see coming.
It takes you from the current direction you are traveling in, and turns your head to look in a new way. It takes away what you thought you needed and wanted, so you can learn a new truth.
When I was a child, I experienced much suffering. I spent the majority of my childhood in a hospital, and in that place I saw suffering, sickness and sometimes even death all around me. Some of my suffering though was bought about by my absolute inability to accept the circumstances of my life and surrender to what lay in front of me.
Acceptance and surrender would have alleviated some of my suffering, but not all. And that was because behind some of my suffering was a great gift being offered to me. And that was the gift of presence — the ability to exist in the present moment.
If I am suffering from anxiety, fear, worry and stress, then I am existing too much in the future. And also, on the other hand, if I am experiencing resentment, bitterness, sadness and regret, I am allowing my consciousness to dwell too much in the past. All these things rob me of the gift of the Now. For truly, I am never actually not in the now. And in the now, 99% of the time, everything is okay.
Seeing life and death unfold around me as a young child taught me early that life is precious, and that life must be lived. And for that to happen, I must be present.
Moment to moment. I must be present. Present to the fact that I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
And oh my, what an experience it is to be human.
A human experience is one of the senses. The ability to see things, to hear things, to taste, to touch and to feel. To love, and be loved in return. What a ride! These things are all the gifts of the present moment.
If I am present and aware, I am able to see the beauty of the divine expression in all things great and small.
I can recapture the wonder I felt in the world when I viewed it as a small child. Before I told myself I knew what everything was. The wonder of the fact that water comes out of a tap when I turn it on, or a spider weaving her web, or a bird as she soars above me. The fact I have a pen and it makes marks on a paper. The wonder of this phone I am typing this article on.
These are all occurrences and miracles that have the ability to bring great joy to my soul, if I am present to them.
This is the birthright of every human being, because I am, we all are, a center of expression for divine will. And the key to experiencing true joy and alleviating my suffering is to practice surrender and acceptance in my presence.
Moment to moment, that is what I am asked to be conscious of. And that is what will bring true joy to my soul. With surrender and acceptance in this present moment, I will end my suffering. And if I can be powerfully present and conscious, moment by moment, then that is when I can truly say that the kingdom of spirit is embodied in my flesh.
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Kim Turfrey is a mother of two who lives in New Zealand and enjoys writing. She was born with a disability, and has used crutches for her whole life. She spent the majority of the first 12 years of her life living mainly in a hospital, away from her family, and now she writes about life as she sees it. You could contact Kim via Facebook.
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