5 Things to Remember In a Complicated Life

“Anyone can plot a course with a map or compass; but without a sense of who you are, you will never know if you’re already home.”

― Shannon L. Alder

It’s complicated. Well, we know what that usually means, as a relationship status; how things have changed. “It’s complicated” may never have featured on any job or social security forms, but it’s aptly descriptive for many people in the social media world.

But a complicated life is different to “It’s complicated,” and factorial higher.

Five things to remember when life is complicated:

1.      Know that life inevitably changes – it won’t always be as bad or as complicated as it is now. Generally, I’ve found that a couple of months to a couple of years signifies a season. Things won’t always be the way they are. A year from now things will be vastly different, and with hope, better.

2.      Having relationship problems is part of life. Even married people – especially married people – have relationship problems. Single people have relationship problems, but they might be tempted to elevate those problems just to be in a relationship. It’s not always worth it. Whatever status of relationship we are presently in we’re likely to have problems. If feels complicated; maybe more complicated than it could be. We will get hurt and we will hurt.

3.      It’s easy to forget our blessings when things have taken a turn for the worse. It’s easy to lose hope. Too easy. Remembering the good things is a blessing in itself, and it’s possible to remember the good things even in bad times. When we consider God’s faithfulness in the past we have hope for the future.

4.      The mind plays tricks on us when we invest too much in our feelings, though we should not deny them. It’s of real value to check our emotional problems for their veracity of logic. Whilst we need to hear our emotional selves, we also need to redress the illogical thoughts with something steadier and more sustainable.

5.      Home is where the heart is. And home – our true home – is not a physical place, though it sometimes can be. Home is not always about being with a particular person, but it can be. Most of all, home is the Presence of God’s Spirit in us that makes us feel that we have nothing to prove and that we have nothing to gain by doing what we might come to regret; that we can let life be, no matter how complicated life is.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.