What is Misery?

She said I must be miserable.
I said I'm not a miserable kind of person.
She said maybe not always, but it can't be helped with such difficulties in my life.
I told her misery is a choice I chose not to make.
I think she did not hear me.

Some people think I should not be effected by my difficulties. That being effected means choosing misery.
I disagree.
Misery is having no hope of hope.
Misery is a house of lies because truth is misunderstood and downright ignored.
Misery is being convinced our existence is a shameful audacity and therefore punished for it.
Misery is the terror that lies in unbecoming.
Misery was the home that is no home. The home where misery is.

But misery did not last.

Because God is greater than misery.

He taught me He did not hate me like they did.
He taught me life is not constricted to the falseness that was home.
He taught me to respect myself even if the would not.
He taught me to imagine safety.
He taught me to imagine life and beauty and hope.
He taught me to recognize myself.
He taught me to enjoy and recognize value in my uniqueness.
He taught me to expect good things to come.

My body does not work as most do,
My life is not like the one I first imagined.
Sometimes the weariness brings forth tears of exhaustion and discouragement.
They pass.
I rest.
I still hope because I have been taught to by my Father.
This life of illness is hard, but it is not the hardest thing I have lived.

That life left scars that ache and disturb in stormy circumstances.
That is part of life.
It also complicates my life in ways confusing to many I have met.
But while it is a recurring reminder of horror and misery that was, it is also a reminder that the wounds are healing.

So I do not understand when people assume my life must be misery.
I did not choose that home.
I did choose to turn away, towards the loving, healing, comforting, patient embrace of God.
I chose hope.

Misery is not a failing body, a failing relationship, a failing career.
Dreams and hopes are not limited to mortality.
Misery is blinders that block the brightness of life, of joy, of pain endured and overcome, of growth, of love, of hope.
If you will let Him, God can take those blinders away.

(written 3/8/15)