These are steps on how to overcome despair. They are just baby steps but a move in the right direction.
To begin with, despair isn’t selective or hard to find.
You can find it anywhere—the happily married woman and the single mom. The poor think money is the answer to despair, and yet there it is with the rich.
I think I know what causes it least in me. It’s the lack of what I deem as good available options.
Despair comes in difficult times and situations when the only decision is a hard one. It’s the old saying, between a rock and a hard place.
I‘ve been there.
When my children were small, I felt pressured to work full-time and place them in daycare.
Logically, after putting four kids in daycare, I wouldn’t have much left over anyway, but I worried most about their emotional impact.
Full-time daycare may not be a great option, but neither is poverty.
Winning didn’t seem available, and despair showed up and settled in my soul.
My desire to care for and provide for my children was equally important. But letting it eat me up inside didn’t help anyone.
How could I have handled this differently?
Overcoming despair starts with a decision to seek out wisdom.
It’s not easy, but it is better than the alternative.
The alternative is sinking farther into despair. We develop tunnel vision and forget those around us, ourselves, and our options.
We panic and run unthinkingly like a deer fleeing a lion. Women find themselves in situations and relationships they would never have chosen before.
Despair takes away clear vision, but wisdom restores your vision. And give you additional options.
Initially, you may not see an option available. But take the time to breathe, calm down, and consider what is truly important.
In ten years, what do you want this to look like? Is there logic in this decision that considers the future and the now?
Wisdom calls us to slow down, breathe, and see the large picture from God’s eyes.
In our humanness, we often only see the now. It can be effortless to lose sight of the big picture.
We feel the pain or the fear as unbearable, and it may feel like walking through impenetrable darkness. I won’t discount or invalidate this feeling. It’s terrifying.
Wisdom requires you to look at the entire puzzle, not just one piece. And so it is with our lives.
There is more to us than this death, this divorce, and this aloneness.
There is more to these kids’ stories than pain, heartbreak, and abuse.
Seeing the large picture and knowing there is more to our story is the answer to despair.
It helps us to see past a divorce, troubled children, poverty, and complete brokenness. It offers us hope through hopeless nights.
Wisdom requires us to do the hard thing.
Wisdom requires us to look up and look around. To see our kids and to ask and observe how they are.
Do they need counseling? Do they need to be protected in some way? We can no longer keep our heads in the sand.
As moms, we need to take inventory. We need to look at our surroundings.
And ask ourselves the following questions:
- Are there dangerous people around us?
- Are we setting ourselves up for financial failure?
- Could we be setting ourselves up to be victimized?
- Does the small, quiet voice inside you tell you that a specific person should not be allowed access to your kids?
Then wisdom says to lean in, carefully watch, and discover what’s happening. And take action.
Wisdom requires us to be okay with complex situations and wait things out if it is the healthiest thing to do.
Choosing wisdom lets you acknowledge that things may look and work differently for you.
It admits that housing may change and that relationships may need to end. It accepts that things are messy.
Wisdom always protects. It holds these precious children and cherishes them. It safeguards their future and happiness.
Life may be easier someday, but don’t take the easy way out if it is not safe and healthy for you and your children.
We will need to go through the difficulty, not around it.
The hard questions must be asked. Broken marriages, affairs, addictions, and abuse must be acknowledged.
Grief will be part of the journey, but accepting loss allows us to move forward.
We consider what options we do have that bring growth and healing.
As women and moms, we keep pushing through the pain.
We choose to be honest with our kids and hold them. And get them whatever support they need to grow up to be healthy and whole adults.
In conclusion, wisdom offers us a future.
This future comes at a high cost. It would have been easier to choose despair and give up. But when something comes at a high price, we treasure it more.
Our families have endured difficult times, but we have done the work required for healing.
By the time we arrive at the future, we will be able to face the future with hope and excitement.
We will hold our heads high. We will have healthy relationships with our kids. And we will know that we handled our crisis and pain in a way that brought hope to ourselves and our families.
For additional information on hope, please consider this post:
https://www.singlemomoutwest.com/faith-for-single-moms/how-to-feel-more-positive/
