What Do You Do When Life Devastates You?

No matter what you do, and no matter who you are, you are not immune to trials.  Tragedy, difficulties, and disappointments are no respecter of persons and at some point in your life’s journey you will experience them.  Which is why I want to share with you five things I did when life devastated me.

One of the worst things that could ever happen to a parent happened to me when my five year old son complained of a headache.  That headache turned into brain cancer, and that brain cancer turned into the untimely death of my son Brayden.  That was the most painful situation I’ve ever been called to endure and as you can imagine it hurt bad.  But when the reality of my son’s death set in I realized I was faced with a choice, it was up to me to choose which direction my life would now head in.  Tragedy said I should head south but as the captain of my ship it was my choice to choose in which direction I would head.  Thankfully I chose to head north.  I accomplished this by doing 5 simple things that you can do too, when life hurts you bad.

1. Find the blessing in your storm.  I was blessed to have had and loved Brayden for five years and those were five very special years. So that’s what I tried to train my mind to focus on and you should do the same.  Find the positive no matter how difficult it is in your storm.
2. Don’t  allow your emotions to overtake you.  It is natural to experience certain emotions when tragic things happen but if we allow them to overtake us it will only further negatively impact our lives and the lives of others.  So I made the decision not to allow depression to come in and rule me.  Not only for me but also because I had to be a strong for my daughter and my husband who desperately needed my support.
3. Understand you deserve to be happy.  I made the decision to be happy. There is a song that says, “This joy that I have the world didn’t give it and the world can’t take it away.” That statement is so true because true joy comes from being in the presence of God.  Psalms 16:11 tells us that in the presence of God is the fullness of joy.  So if you want to be happy start basking in the presence of God and He will give you joy that even your circumstances can’t take away.
4. Think of others– Unfortunately what you’ve gone through is not unique, other individuals have and are going to experience something similar to what you’ve gone through.  So it is important that you overcome so that you can help others overcome.
5. Remember who is responsible.  I understood clearly that it was the enemy who was responsible for my pain.  I also understood that it was his plan for this tragedy to ruin the rest of my life.  I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction and you shouldn’t either.

I’m not sure how life has devastated you.   Maybe you were raped or abused,  maybe you were abandoned as a child, maybe you’ve experienced the pain of divorce, maybe you’ve received a bad diagnosis, or maybe like me you’ve experienced the loss of someone special.  Whatever the case may be you deserve the best. The word of God says that you can do all things through Him and that includes overcoming your most devastating situations.  So when you are going through I want you to think about these five steps and remember that through Him you have the power to change the direction of your life.

Let me know what you think about all of this by leaving a comment below.  Also be sure to subscribe and share this post with someone special.