Good enough for God

We went away for a few days for our 25th anniversary. We've been broke, so we decided to roll our change and head to St. Augustine, since we've wanted to go there ever since we moved to Florida. It's been rough the last few weeks, between menopause, financial stress, compassion fatigue, I had to top all that off with quitting smoking. Not a great move on my part, leaving me wanting to cry most of the time, having a terrible time sleeping plus the withdrawal, a whole other issue of my personality being drained out of me, leaving me finding it almost impossible to find anything positive to think about.

I haven't liked myself very much because I'm a stranger in my own skin. The same way I describe PTSD, is what happens when your body goes into shock. I quit cold turkey. (One Chantix doesn't count as being medicated) While this kind of depression will get milder as time goes on, PTSD does not unless there is intervention. It is difficult to find anything good but it doesn't mean there isn't anything good to see.

Part of the trip to St. Augustine, was going for a ride to see where the tours didn't take us. We caught a glimpse of a cemetery just beyond the Florida National Guard building during one of the tours and wanted to get a closer look. Coming from Massachusetts, old cemetery sites were just part of history, visited often, especially in Salem. I was not prepared for what I found in this cemetery among the old stones of this military cemetery.

Pyramids

Monuments and Memorials
The Dade Monument is composed of three distinct pyramids constructed of native coquina stone. The pyramids were erected in 1842 and were originally covered with white stucco. The memorials were dedicated at a ceremony on Aug. 14, 1842, that marked the end of the Florida Indian Wars.

The pyramids cover vaults that contain the remains of 1,468 soldiers who died during the Florida Indian Wars, from 1835 to 1842. According to the inscription, the wars began on Dec. 25, 1835. Three days later, Maj. Francis L. Dade and his regiment were enroute from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to Fort King (Ocala) when they were ambushed and killed. Of the 106 men and officers under his command, only two survived. Maj. Dade and his men are among those entombed at the pyramids.

The Dade Monument, a coquina stone and marble obelisk, was erected in 1881 and commemorates Maj. Francis L. Dade and the men who died with him at the 1835 massacre. Soldiers stationed at the St. Augustine post contributed one day’s pay to fund the memorial.

http://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/staugustine.asp

I found something really good in a cemetery of all places. Think about this story. How the monuments were built and who they were built for. A story of compassion in the midst of such darkness.

It is the same way within all of us. No matter how dark we may feel inside, no matter how hard things get or how heavy the weight on our shoulders drags us down, in the end, it really doesn't matter because all we need to get past it is already there.

Sounds strange? Sure. Think I may be nuts? So do I right now, but stay with me and let's see if I can make some sense out of what I'm trying to say.

I am not me right now because of all that is going on and the smoking thing. I can look at how I'm not sleeping at night only and not at the fact my husband has been extra understanding of the fact I'm exhausted and need some more sleep in the day. I can look at the times when the tears just start to flow, but Jack reaches out to hug me. I can look at the fact that today after we got home, I didn't even want to read the emails or the fact Jack said I should just start by answering one. Look at what I lost in all of these years of marriage getting from there to here, or look at how far we've come and how much we've gained with each other. Life is all about how you look at it and what you want to see.

I used to think that I wasn't good enough for God and that's why I don't seem to be very successful. Then it dawned on me that I don't have to be good enough for God. I am already. Whatever I lack, He's got the ability to fix it, change it, adapt me to it or the people around me. He already knew how miserable I'd be at some things and how good I'd be with others. He put the "corrections" already inside of me and I bet He expected me to find them. Just as the monuments at the cemetery are about the horrific deaths of so many, they were also about compassion from the people who built them. My life is dark right now but God built me with love, just as He built you with love. We don't have to be good enough for anyone other than Him and frankly, when you think about it, we already are.

He built compassion within us and expects us to use it to answer the needs of others, to show them they are loved, to feed them with what they need to face their own lives a little easier than they do now. To let them know they do matter, their lives matter, their dreams matter and yes, their pain matters too.

When it comes to our own lives and our own suffering, we need to remember the same thing. We can look at what caused our pain or think of how it can be used. We can look at something like PTSD, wonder where God was when the events happened, or finally understand that He was there because someone was looking for Him. He was there within those who bothered to ask where He was because they knew Him as a loving God in the midst of such darkness. He was there just as He is with us right now.

My darkest days may not be behind me yet and I may not be able to get past this time, this time. I will keep trying if I do fail because I know I don't have to be perfect but I do have to be as good as I can be in this moment. The rest as they say, is already there.


This statue of David was at the Ripley's Believe it or Not. If you want to know how God can forgive anything think of David. There he was filled with love for God, picked to rule, yet what did he do? He messed up his life big time. His family suffered and so did his people. Yet do we look at his life, his story as one of being a failure? Think about it.