IT NEVER WAS/IS/WILL BE THE SAME

There are events in the lives of each and every one of us when everything changes, when nothing will be the same again. Some of these life-changing events are wonderful: graduation from college, marriage, a move to a new part of the country – the list is endless. On the other hand, some of these life-changing events are not so wonderful. In fact, they can be frightening: a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a job, the breakup of a marriage. Again: an endless list.

What we do with these life-changing events, how we respond, is what is important. And respond we must. We have no other choice. We can rejoice with the good and lament with the bad, but we respond. And we respond by moving on with our lives. Our lives are now changed forever. They will never be the same again.

The euphoria from joyful events eventually dies down. As they say, the honeymoon does not last forever. On the other hand, the sadness that comes from painful changes and the pain itself does not mean that our life is over. We live on, changed to be sure, but we live on. We can wallow in our misery and pain, but we still must move on. Our lives will never be the same again.

But they never were. Life-changing events are rare, few and far-between. Thank God for that or else it would be difficult to even survive.  Psychologists tell us that one life-changing event at a time is difficult enough. It causes us great anxiety to our psyche let alone what it does to our body itself. Two such events can be overwhelming.

Our lives change every day. No two days are alike. They may be very similar but they are never identical. We will never repeat yesterday and we will never repeat today and tomorrow will be different than any day we have lived to date. Sometimes we forget that truth. We are a changed person each day. Granted, we may not be able to perceive the change, but we are changed.

Over the long run the imperceptible daily changes can morph into a significant change in who we are and how we live. Crash diets may work but they do not last. We are not suddenly a different person the day after our marriage as the day before. Life changes take time, often more time than we would wish that they would take. But when give ourselves the time to change, to adapt to the new day, the new life, the new way; when we do that, we grow.

“It will never be the same again,” we may lament. But it never was. We cannot freeze frame the joyful moment and live it forever nor can we excise the bad moment as if it never happened. We simply move on to the next moment and the next and the next dealing with what now is as best we can with the help of God’s grace and the love and support of one another.