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We all have times in our lives where things just don't go the way we had planned. Our intentions were good, and our mind was telling us everything would be okay, but circumstances beyond our control placed a fly in our ointment. Well, sometimes it was a fly, sometimes Mount Everest. Nothing lasts forever, although at times, it may seem like it. The saying, "This too shall pass" works for both positive and negative ways.
We may plan a wedding for a year, and within hours, it is over, it passed. The stores start stocking their shelves for holidays weeks beforehand. Now, it's Valentine's Day, next it will be Easter. We wait for these holidays. We plan for these holidays. We cook, clean, and buy for these holidays, and then they are over, they pass. Everything passes, time never stands still. We may need an operation and it is scheduled for two months away. Those months seem like they are lasting forever, putting us in a holding pattern in our lives having something held over our heads. We worry, we think about it, maybe even obsess about it. One day, however, we find ourselves being in the operating room, counting down from a hundred, and going home the next day. That situation is over, it passed. Now, we can move on with our lives.
A couple may take a beautiful vacation, and enjoy fishing and boating and sitting in the sun, and going to all the finest restaurants to eat. However, the vacation must end, and their lives must go back to their daily routines. Everything must pass. Life doesn't stand still for anyone. Terminal illnesses go on and on, and those afflicted and their loved ones must go through untold pain and heartache, but, eventually, their trials do end, this too has passed. I remember when each one of my kids started school. Two of them have graduated, and one hopefully will next year! Even their infancy and toddler stage and preteen and teenager stages have passed.
I also recall the few days my older two, seventeen and nineteen, and my youngest at fourteen, all had the chicken pox. I was really worried with my older kids. They had been exposed all their lives between school and cousins, but they had never come down with them. They were so sick. High fevers, achy, fluish, and one stayed in their room, and one just lay on the family room floor. They didn't move all day. It was heartbreaking for me. Their scabs were bigger, so their pock marks are bigger. They were older, so they felt sicker, it was a mess. However, this too, passed.
While being pregnant for nine months, it doesn't seem like you'll ever get to the time of birth, but having three adult kids, I can attest, even childbirth passes. Childhood passes. Adulthood passes. Old age passes. We all pass. Once we have had experience in the passing of people, places and things, we can begin to put into practice a better way of focusing our attention on the positive, the happy, the inspirational. If we know everything's going to pass, then we must take advantage of the exciting, fun, good things, and take heart that the negative, dishonest and bad stuff will pass as well. Experience is our teacher, but we need to remember what we've already been through, to give us the calm and hope and desire to keep moving forward, knowing that everything is going to pass eventually.
I broke my toe a few months ago and I had to wear a surgical boot, and my toe throbbed. I ended up not wearing the boot, but my toe still hurt. At the beginning, I said, "Ouch every time I stepped on it. Then, it was every few times, then none, and my toe didn't hurt anymore. That, too, passed. Years ago, my mom passed away, years later, my dad passed away, both very sad and rooted experiences, that produced a lot of soul searching and a lot of truth. The pain was intense. I didn't think I could get through the day, but I did, and the next, and the next. Those experiences passed when it was so deep and raw. Now, I miss them, I talk to them, I feel them, I absorb strength and wisdom from them, and I can deal with it.
People having a house built go through all kinds of upsets and things not happening on time, but one day, they are sitting in their new home, entertaining. The time it took to build their house passed. If we can really incorporate the principle that "This too shall pass," into our daily lives, and try to do things for ourselves in the meantime that calm us and make us feel good, we could actually enjoy life, and not constantly worry and complain about it.
  
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