life is not for the faint of heart

Life is not for the faint of heart

Bob Hatcher

September 29, 2011

                No one ever said life would be easy but for some it is definitely easier than for others. I am constantly counting my blessing.  My gratitude list goes on and on and on. But I certainly do see the pain and suffering of those about me.

Life is so full of twists and turns that one has only to keep his or her eyes open and the pain of life is right there before us.  A missionary, Frank Laubach, once said “Forgive me God for looking at the world with dry eyes.”  So if you don’t see the pain and suffering in your midst, look around you or read a newspaper a bit more carefully. 

Search for Somalia, Syria or Libya on Google and try to let yourself feel peoples’ hunger, pain, loneliness, hopelessness, fear and desperation. 

Ask Caroline White what abuse brought women to her amazing program, Fight Abuse In The Home or FAITH. You will cry.

Ask Steve Hall at St. James church about the people he is helping with his discretionary fund. Ask your minister who is sick and who is dying in your church community.  There are many who are in pain or are living with little hope who reside right here in Rabun County just as surely as they are found in the “trouble spots” of the world. 

Think about the person who has been sitting on death row for several years or even several decades for a crime he or she simply did not commit and if you don’t think this is a possibility, read John Grisham’s book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. Don’t for a minute think that this is an isolated case.  Hundreds have been released from death row thanks to DNA tests. Others have been released from death row due to evidence that prosecutors had willfully manipulated evidence.

Life does throw us some pitches that are virtually impossible to hit. Life is not for the faint of heart.

So what next after you are in a pool of discontent and sorrow at man’s inhumanity to man, at the health problems you or a loved one about you is challenged with or at the failure of our elected officials at all levels of government to work constructively toward the solutions to problems facing our society .

Sometimes the answers elude us completely.  Sometimes there is no answer.

I know what I have done when feeling the pain, feeling stressed to the max, afraid, uncertain as what the next right step is or feeling lonely.  I just know from experience what will help me the most.  I try to figure out whom I might reach out to with love.  For me this is the very best source of healing.

Robert A. Hatcher MD, MPH
Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics
Emory University School of Medicine