Why Are We Here?
In a world designed to maximize the superficial and minimize the spiritual, pursuing our real reason for being often means a willingness to suffer for a while as we move towards our true purpose and ultimate goal — love.
Plus, I have news! (Bottom of page.)
Why was I born? Why am I here? We spend our lives searching for answers to existential questions such as these. Even for those who don’t ask these questions overtly, every human being is inevitably striving to feel a sense of purpose in their life.
With my birthday coming up later this month, I’ve been finding myself reflecting on the last year, which was no doubt my hardest yet. A lot of change, a lot of loss, a lot of letting go. As my world and dreams as I knew them began to fall away, I found myself questioning my purpose more than ever. If I was no longer who I once was, if the things that were once important to me no longer felt important, if I no longer had that job, title or those relationships, who was I and what did I have? A friend told me recently that it sounded like I was going through a midlife crisis. If thirty-five qualifies as midlife, he’s probably right.
But I don’t want to go on about me or my journey over the last year. I do however want to share with you what helped me through painful changes and losses, because I know that pain, change, and loss are not unique to me. Rather, they are the most essential and common human experience: learning to deal with the inevitability of change and loss, striving to navigate our transitions with strength and grace, and working to keep faith, hope, and love alive along the way — even when we feel like the world is crumbling around us. It is my hope that by sharing what helped me through this last year, that it will help you or someone you love who is navigating change and loss right now.
Remember earlier when I said that as I was going through major change and loss I began asking myself: who am I and what do I have without the things (and ideas) I was letting go of? Well, I began to experience on a more profound level than ever before, that who we are at our core – our real self – never changes. That no matter how much we feel we are losing, we always have truth and love.
While intellectually I always knew this, it wasn’t until my darkest hour this past winter that I really felt it and surrendered to it. I leaned on and trusted in truth and love and God in a way I’d never done before. And while I was still experiencing deep suffering, I found faith and hope — something to hang onto when nothing else sufficed. I began using the word ‘God’ to encompass the totality of the knowing I was experiencing, which felt both foreign and natural to me at once.
Despite my reservations about using the word God because it has been so bastardized and ridiculed, including by myself at one point in time, I found it vital to reclaim our creator’s name as so, and not minimize it to meager replacements such as ‘the universe’. In my darkest hour, God ‘substitutes’ weren’t enough. They weren’t tangible enough. They didn’t feel close enough.
As A Course In Miracles says, during times of deep suffering, we need something to put our faith in — a real experience of something else; something more solid and sure; more worthy of faith and really there. And for me, this past year, and especially this last winter, I needed that more than ever. I needed something to give reason for how on earth things could be the way that they were – why at points in life, we can find ourselves in such desolate, despairing circumstances.
Of course I could trace my steps back and see how the choices I made led me to where I found myself, but I also knew deep in my bones that there was more to the story than that. That there was something more to the picture that had become my life than my own footsteps; my own missteps. That there was a greater plan at play — something larger and beyond me that I could never fully understand, and that I was not in control of. It was this knowing — this trust, this faith — that is what helped me to continue on; to move through and eventually past the darkness.
To sum things up, my message to you today is this:
If you are going through a particularly challenging time – if loss, grief, heartache, and fear are surrounding you with a dark cloud and pushing you to give up – call upon your heart’s courage to continue.
And where do you find your heart’s courage?
In God and love.
God is always there. Love is always there. They both live inside of you. That’s your true self. Your unchangeable, indestructible, undefeatable self. The self that nothing and no one can ever take away from you.
Living a life dedicated to truth often means being willing to suffer for a while as you move towards your greatest purpose and ultimate goal of love. Despite the suffering and loss you may be experiencing now, you will never lose your real self and reason for being — to exalt your questions and purpose to God, and to trust His love. Your only job is to take actions that are in alignment with His purpose for you, which is to choose love every step of the way, even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.
As the saying goes, it’s always darkest before dawn. But if you keep going, if you use your pain and heartache as fuel for growth and transformation, you’ll make your way back to the light. The light is always there; lift the veil. Walk towards it.
The sooner you make the courageous choice to choose love, the sooner you’ll see the light.
And if you need help, please remember I’m always here.
News — It’s time to get serious!
Speaking of purpose, I’m finally owning my vocation: that I’m here to share about love through writing. It’s scary, but it’s the ‘me’ — my real self — that has never changed. Historically, I’ve shied away from calling myself a writer, but the clock is ticking and there’s no time left to be shy.
I’m in the process of writing a book on love, which I hope to have published by the end of summer (prayers, please). In the meantime, I’ve also launched a Substack – another step in the direction of getting serious about writing as a career path.
Please note that if you’ve been following my writings via this newsletter or the Just Choose Love blog, they will now be coming from/found on Substack.
Whether you’ve been following my writings for a while now and have found them helpful, or are a newcomer inspired by what you’ve read here today, I hope you’ll consider subscribing and contributing to my Substack, and sharing it with your friends. You can do so here.
It sure does take a village! Thank you for your support, friends.
Love always,
Samantha