Life sometimes is pretty much just ridiculously hard. Things happen that are unfair. There are times in our lives when we feel like things could not possibly get worse. And we are miserable.
There have been times in my life when I have let myself be
consumed by the things that were going wrong. I justified my unhappiness by telling
myself that I had every right to be that way.
My life is hard! I feel awful! Nothing is going my way. I
deserve to be miserable.
And so I was.
Then I came to Romania.
Being in Romania is completely changing my perspective. Here
I do not have to try as hard to be happy, it just kind of happens.
I recognize that I cannot understand just how hard some
lives have been. I know I have not felt as much sadness or darkness as so many
people in this world and I will not try to understand how they feel. I simply
want to share my thoughts and feelings about a group of very happy people who
have taught me so much about life.
I have ten children in my room in the orphanage: nine are
confined to cribs or beds, one is mobile. One of the goals that I set at the
beginning of the semester was to make each of them smile at least once a day. Little
did I know, that wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
These children have almost nothing. They have no family.
They live in an orphanage with dozens of other children. They stay in their
beds or wheelchairs all day every single day. They cannot walk or even sit up
by themselves. They cannot go outside and see the beauties of the world. Heck,
half of them can’t see period. These children cannot feed themselves and over
half of them have feeding tubes taped to their faces. If someone in this world
deserves to be miserable it is them.
But guess what? They aren’t.
Mary giggles every time you tickle her stomach or put her
stuffed monkey in her bed really close to her face. She loves to be held and
she gets really excited where she hears music. She seriously laughs so so hard.
Flori has the brightest smile. She is sixteen. She just
loves to be paid attention to. Flori will laugh when you pat her back or
massage her tight muscles. If you put your hand right next to hers she will
struggle to lift it and let you slide your hand under hers. But beware, she
does not let go easily. She is just so content when she is with someone.
Dima is pretty much hilarious. He has a tiny little head
that shakes so hard when he laughs. His laughs are silent. You know, the ones
when you start giggling so hard that no noise comes out? That is his laugh all
of the time. It isn’t hard to make him happy, just tickle his tummy a bit.
Kris flashes a huge grin every time he hears his name. That is all it takes. Kris is honestly
the happiest child that I have ever met. I have never heard him cry. When I
hold him he gets really excited and forgets to breath for a minute. And he
loves singing.
These are just a few of the children. All of them are so
wonderful and so happy.
If these children can be happy when they have nothing,
surely I can be happy too.
Now, does that mean that we are doing something wrong if we
are not skipping around in the sunshine one hundred percent of the time? Of
course not.
In Ecclesiastes chapter three we are taught that, “To every
thing there is a season” and that there is “a time to weep, and a time to
laugh.” Amongst the joys in life there will be some dark times. There will be
days when we feel like the world is crashing down. It is ok, and even
necessary, to feel pain and sorrow during those times.
In the Bible we are taught the story of Jesus raising
Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been in the grave for four days before
Christ came and his sisters were mourning the loss of their beloved brother.
Christ followed Martha, a sister of Lazarus, to the tomb.
John 11: 35 “Jesus wept.”
And verse 36, “Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!”
Lazarus was Christ friend. Even though Christ knew that
Lazarus would soon rise from the dead, He took the time to mourn the loss of
someone dear to Him. If Jesus Christ, our perfect example, mourned during a
difficult time then we know that we are given time to mourn as well.
And then, somehow, we must trust that there are better times
ahead. We must fill our lives with things and people that we love and learn to
look for the beauty of life again.
Perhaps there is not a foolproof recipe for happiness.
Perhaps it is different for every person. But here in Romania I am learning
what it takes for me to be happy. For me happiness is filling my life with
people that I love. It is giving everything that I have, as small of an
offering as that may be, to people who need it more than I do. It is trying my
very best to serve like Christ would. And it is praying to God every day for
help to feel full and happy.
If you think that you deserve to be miserable, you are
probably right. Life is hard. You probably have plenty of reasons to feel
unhappy. But if you get tired of feeling that way, make some changes.
Because there is plenty of happy to go around.
