Discouragement

There are a few constant companions when it comes to Homelessness; depression, hopelessness, helplessness, rejection, upset, anger and the list goes on. But the nightmare that has been the most frequent returning guest to my particular neighborhood has been discouragement. 

I will begin a project, look for work, try to take care of my legal issues, fix my situation, consider romance...and here comes Old Man Discouragement saddling up to the bar of my hopes and dreams and he shuts the place down.  I have been a poor fighter against discouragement, mismatched.   I have always felt as if, over time, one leg after another has been kicked out of the seat that I have been sitting on that leaves me in this place...A Homeless Shelter...looking up to the pinprick of light that is where I would love to be, have to get to.  But the walls are wet and muddy and I can't get purchase and each time I begin to climb I already feel as if it is inevitable that I will slide down and fall to the floor.   So when I do, it is maddening...but not shocking.

And here am I, 43 years OLD and nothing to use to prop me up...nothing tangible that is, nothing that this world seems to value.  I mean, what do I have to offer an employer, society, a woman?  I am actively pursuing being a better person?  God loves me?  No home, no car, no money...not even a security blanket to line a nest with...wow that is a bummer!

But, I don't forget that pinprick of light. 

Someone has said that when you wake up in the morning you should look at all the positive things in your life, then take a moment and think if things had not gone that positive way for you...then snatch your mind back to your reality...things look better right? 

Well, I try to stay in that moment all the time...The Soma of hope, perhaps.  But, I have to get up in the morning, despite discouragement.  I have to get on with sifting through the pieces of my life, patiently trying to rebuild the mosaic that is me, despite setbacks and challenges.  And beyond frustration and obstacles and nastiness I still have to have hope.  That pin prick is why I am alive and most important it is the reason that I will be alive tomorrow.  That pinprick is my faith in God, and when earthquakes come and shake everything else in my life, that light remains...and I am overwhelmed by it.  Because at the end of the day I am more than a car or a house or material things, and maybe I needed to be in this hole to discover it.  So, I can be left lonely and never be alone, be tossed by the winds and waves of this life and still keep that glimmer of hope.  I can be despised and ridiculed and left on my dry dung heap of an existence and still believe.  Because, my dear friend, life is more than me...discouragement can come and come and come again but he can never stay.  My hope is built on bigger stuff than things that will turn to dust in a little while.  I hope yours is too...