Life is short
My cousin recently lost his 19-year-old son to cancer. You can’t get much more surreal than talking with a cousin you grew up riding three-wheelers with as he stands next to a coffin with his young son inside. If I wasn’t awake then, I sure am now.
What have I awakened to, you ask? I am awake to the fact that life is too short to waste on things like complaining, worrying, anger, holding grudges, jealousy, and judgmentalness.
I learned at his funeral that this young man did what he could to make the people around him laugh and feel loved, especially during the last year of his life as he fought cancer. From what I’ve heard, he was a really good kid and may have been this way already, but knowing he had a short time left on this side of heaven may have led him to be more intentional about it. I suppose that was one of the few luxuries of knowing his life would be short.
But don’t we all really have a short time left? Our time here is fleeting. The older we get, the faster it seems to go. And do we know how much time we have left with all of our loved ones and the people we come into contact with every day? We don’t know. They could be gone tomorrow. We could be gone tomorrow. I lost my first husband when he was just 39, so I know this well.
As a Christian, I want to see tragedy be used for good. God can certainly use it for His good, especially with HIs children. I see Him doing that in the people my cousin’s son knew his family and friends. He didn’t really know me, but his suffering will glorify God in my life as well because I choose for it to affect me for good. I plan for it to affect the way I live my life going forward.
It’s normal to get angry when someone wrongs us or hurts us, but holding onto that anger as it turns into bitterness or a grudge, helps no one. One day that person I am still so angry at will die, and having held onto that grudge until their death will not give me a good feeling. Just imagine the difference if I had reconciled with that person or just let that hurt go.
For some reason most of us feel like we not only deserve to be angry, but that we have to hold onto that grudge. We feel like we’re supposed to, like it’s not ok to get over it and be civil and kind to the person who wronged us. When we realize that we can turn all of that over to God to deal with, it’s very freeing.
Of course, things like jealousy and judgmentalness don’t do us any good either. It’s really easy as human beings to get caught up in those things. We are all judgemental. If you say you’re not, you’re lying to yourself. It’s a very natural part of being human. The trick is not letting that judgemental behavior take over and turn you into a gossip or make your heart cold. We should use good judgment, but we also need to give people the benefit of the doubt at first. People sometimes have good reasons for acting the way they act, and most of the time it’s none of our business.
Even if people turn out to be not-so-good people, it’s still not our job to stand in judgment of them. We don’t have to hang out with them or even be their friend, but we need to be kind and decent to them while letting God be their judge, just as He is ours.
And who wants to be around someone who complains all the time? It’s normal to get in a bad mood every now and then and want to vent about bad things that happened during the day, but I’m going to try not to dwell on them. If you’re one who sees the cup half empty, try to start approaching life by looking at the positive side of things and trying to be content and grateful for what you have.
That change of attitude can make a huge difference in your level of happiness.
Finally, worrying will do nothing but sap me of all my vitality and ruin my happiness. What happens in this life will happen to us whether we worry about it or not. Again, I will use good judgment, but I won’t let worry prevent me from enjoying my life and my time with others while they are still here.