The Best Part
I used to think things would get easier as I got older. Whole-heartedly believing I would reach a point in life where problems would disappear or cease to continue happening. I couldn’t wait to arrive at that moment in which I would get through the “hard part” of life and live the “best part.” The older I get, the more I realize that is the biggest lie I have ever told myself.
I think we all anticipate reaching a time in our lives when all things come together and everything finally makes sense. We go through situations and life-altering events day after day, year after year. Situations that shake us and break us; that tear our hearts and bring our souls to a drought from endless tears. We hit rock bottom and feel pain we never thought possible before. Situations that leave us overwhelmed, defeated and with heavy hearts. We go through a lot…
I remember a couple of years ago, I was going through one of the darkest times of my life with my family and siblings. It was one of the most painful experiences I have ever lived through and it felt like a never-ending nightmare. It was a couple of years that we had to live through this, being hit with one thing after another. For a long time, I felt as though I was living in a fog, nothing was clear and everything felt unreal. I had never cried as much as I cried in that time. I saw the people, my family, that I most loved fall apart and break. My heart continuously felt heavy, I felt weak, and it became difficult for me to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Although every day I would think, “this is the hard part of life, I just have to get through this, and then I will be able to live the best part.”
About 2 to 3 years ago, it happened. I felt a burden lifted from my shoulders and life felt normal again. I wasn’t living a nightmare anymore; my eyes didn’t fill with tears every other day. My heart felt light, and I finally saw the light in my family’s life and mine. Of course, things were not perfect, but the unbearable pain was not there anymore and I felt like I could breathe again. Things became clear, everything was falling into place, and we had finally made peace with the darkness of the past. Fast forward to the present, and here I am again. Living through a new nightmare, another painful situation…
Why?
Why!? I had already lived through my hard part of life. We, my family and I, had already been through so much. How did we end up here again?! It all felt so unreal, and it hit us out of nowhere. Things unraveled so quickly, and a familiar pain once again took over. I could not believe this was happening again and that we had to face another hard situation.
For a while, I had made myself believe I had finally reached the part of life where everything was alright — the part of life where I would no longer face darkness or unbearable pain. I thought I was there, making sense of the past, and why I lived through those painful things then to enjoy the good moments now. I thought I was in the “best part.”
The reward.
The compensation from all the pain, hurt, tears and confusion we lived through.
I was finally living the best part. I was wrong.
These last couple of months, I have taken everything I have lived and everything I am currently living at this age and time and I realized…
THIS. This is life. The endless ups and downs. Going through absolute darkness and seeing the brightest of lights over and over again. There is no end. Life is this. It is messy, complicated, painful, confusing and overwhelming. It is fun, exciting, peaceful, wonderful and joyful. It is all those things mixed into one. There is no “best part of life.” There is no “worst part of life.” Life just is.
I can’t answer why we go through what we go through. Only God can answer that. I can tell you that we go through all this for a reason. There is no specific time in life in which we go through the bad or the good. It all just happens, when it happens, unexpectedly and unannounced; we live in the uncertainty. It hurts, it hurts every time, but we learn and we understand how to navigate through the pain. We learn how to trust God through the worst and how to thank Him for the best. We learn how to find comfort in God and in each other, to speak words of kindness and believe in hope. Every time we live through these situations or hard times, we go through them with better understanding and patience from the experiences before. These situations make us, they make life, and they bring us closer to God in the good and the bad. Keep going, and learn from whatever may come, whenever it may come. Life will surprise you, but so will God.
