Life serves up hardships and losses that are emotional, spiritual, physical and materialistic in nature. We redirect our efforts to plot the next victory and then sometimes through no fault of our own, it never happens. Disappointment sets into our souls bringing the heartache of failure, and leaves us to question our value. Are we worthless? Do we matter? Why did "they" make me feel this way? It then becomes so easy to slip into the "what if, if only" state of mind to further torture ourselves with these real or imagined failures or ineptitudes.

After a time, we build up such an overload of failure that we blitz ourselves continuously with those moments instead of just letting them go. We emotionally barrage our spirit, beating it up, attacking it in every direction for not being perfect or right or whatever unreal expectation we hold steadfast in our reasoning. With enough of this self-inflicted misery, we are able to sink even lower into a depressed state, never even realizing we are the one that holds the key of escape for our very existence.

The peace cannot be present when we are in such an agitated state. Worse, if we become our own personal persecutor that just never quits pointing out our failures, it never stops. Constantly measuring ourselves by others' achievements, possessions or attributes is often an emotional "kiss of death" we can never overcome. We find ourselves in this hell of our own making, running our life as though it were on a treadmill without purpose, running as fast as we possibly can, yet going nowhere, achieving nothing except the total aggravation and frustration of the meaninglessness of it all.

To make any change in our lives takes effort. Sometimes the effort is just a few steps in the right direction and with a little practice, the change seems like it is normal for us, even comfortable after only a short time. If the sorrow is overwhelming you and misery surrounds you daily, what would you have to lose by going in a different direction?

As humans, sometimes it is hard for us to believe that we do actually hear from God or that He might even send angels to bring us inspiration or words of encouragement. It is easy to doubt our worth and question if we are even good enough to communicate with God/The Great Spirit/The Creator/Tetragrammaton/Jehovah/Messiah/The Light/Budda/Allah/Abba/Father/Lord/The Great I AM/YHWH (JHVH,Yahwah) or whatever name you call the source of the Holy Presence of Creator in your life.

We are the one that puts distance between ourselves and the God Spirit. You can actively pursue a closer relationship with God as you know Him. Please don't feel unworthy. We all sin and fall short of the Glory of God. We are human and flawed. We say things like hell or damn or worse in our moments of anger or anxiety. We are not perfect. We are only striving towards perfection of our spirit in this existence. True, we do make wrong choices or hurtful ones to others or ourselves and often we pay for those.

Sometimes it is immediate and other times we see far-reaching effects of our actions. We can only ask for forgiveness and try to make amends for our mistakes. God honors our asking if it is sincere. The first time we ask we are forgiven. The scriptures tell us this. We are the ones who sometimes refuse to forgive ourselves, and continue to carry guilt or shame for our actions. We actually make our lives much harder by not forgiving ourselves. This simple act of forgiving is a key to a better spirit life that will bring you joy and peace.