Good news…life is good!

We received word yesterday afternoon that the young person who had been hospitalized for a week was going to be discharged and be able to return home…which he did!

Life is still not going to be easy…it never is as easy for any of us as we might wish. And it definitely is never as simple and easy for those we love as we think we might hope. But that’s not all bad.

If life were simple and easy, we would never find the inner resources and strength that are innate in us. Granted, sometimes it can be so difficult that it can destroy individuals, and that is not good. But learning to deal with difficulties in relationships with others, learning to develop resources to deal with the times when life does not go like you hope it would, learning to trust…that is good.

Sometimes that means you have to be willing to dig down below the surface–and that’s what was so difficult for this loved one. It took him several days to be willing to start acknowledging his feelings–his deep-down feelings. But once he did, then he is now at the point where he can be helped on an out-patient basis.

None of us are immune to difficult life situations. They’re going to happen.

But I am so thankful for people who are willing to help us deal with them–to find those strengths within us that allow us…even in the midst of turmoil and difficulty…to find ways of saying “Life is good!”

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Is life supposed to be this hard?

The first line of M. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled is “Life is hard.” His premise is then that if we can accept that, then it becomes much easier to deal with the difficult situations that come our way.

I’m old enough that I understand that…and can live with it. But sometimes it seems so unfair when young people have to discover that in difficult ways before they are even teens!

Last night a young family member was admitted to the children’s ward in a mental hospital for evaluation and help. He had made some suicide threats at school that were specific enough that a crisis team was called in and it was felt that he needed the hospitalization. I’m hoping that will give him the help he needs and the tools he needs to deal with his life issues…and there are so many!

• Dealing with ADHD.
• A mother who gave him birth…but who has had very limited contact with him for several years…calls when she feels like she needs to hear his voice but otherwise doesn’t pay much attention
• First stepmother who left…although he hasn’t missed her that much.
• Second stepmother who walked out on him and his father in a way that left everyone wondering if she was alive or dead. That one devastated him, because she’d been the mother in all the ways that count for five significant years of his life…and yet she did not see (or didn’t want to see) the love he had for her because he could also push her buttons.
• Death of a great-grandfather from Alzheimers. He didn’t really know that grandfather well, but he still missed him.
• Death of a great-grandmother whom he did know.
• Death of another great-grandfather with whom he had a very special relationship, and whose death created a void.
• Death of a much-loved cousin (who was a Marine) on the cousin’s 21st birthday.

He does have several positive things going for him–a father who loves him, paternal grandparents who are there for him and who love him deeply as well, a church family that supports him…

I hope that he is able to learn his way  to deal with the fact that life is hard. He has so much going for him and so much potential! If he can learn that, then he will also learn that life is good.