When Optimism Tested Look to Spirituality for Stamina and Endurance

Jan. 19, 2012 - PRLog -- Everyday our optimism is tested by the circumstances of life and we must find the stamina to withstand this constant bombardment from small and major threats.  Sometimes it helps to look back at a major life crisis of yours, a loved or admired one to get the inspiration to hold onto the positive view and keep taking the next step.  If we stood up to pessimism in the past we can do it again. We can say to ourselves:

   "If that loved or admired one kept the positive view, so can I."

In today’s post, I share an up close and personal story that I go back to whenever I feel my optimism being tested in some major way.  And, in this experience, I learned how important the spiritual component of belief is in staying optimistic.

Optimism Tested Once

When my mother was 12, her mother, my grandmother, Ethel, was diagnosed with cancer.  She was only in her mid thirties, had three children under the age of fourteen and it was early in the Great Depression.  The prognosis was not good.  The children were told to pray, and were further told that if they prayed, their mother would live.  Needless to say, Ethel did not live.   As you might imagine this experience began to undermine Betty’s belief in God.  She wondered:

   ·        “If God couldn’t save my mother, what good is He?"

For most of the rest of her life she remained religious, went to church regularly, raised her children in a religious tradition, but all the while feeling like God had let her down.  Throughout her life she had questioned the strength of her faith.  She was by temperament a very easy going, positive, outgoing person, who laughed easily and mightily, but she carried with her throughout her life a heavy burden of doubting a God who she so desperately wanted to believe in.

Optimism Tested Twice

When I was 15, my mother, the one who had lost her mother to cancer was now terminally ill with recurrent breast and ovarian cancer.  She was upfront with me, said she didn’t think she would live, but she wanted me to now her story of loss of faith so I wouldn’t struggle for a lifetime with my faith the way she had.  She wanted me to know that she had finally come to believe that when she was 12, she had been misinformed about the role of God in her life by some well intended people.   She no longer blamed God for her mother’s death.  She stressed how much she believed her loss of faith had damaged her ability to remain optimistic each and every day, even though she had been taught by her father, whom she revered, to always take a positive view.

My first thought was how well she had hidden any pessimism she experienced from me while I was growing up and during her illness. No matter how much pain she was in, she would always put on a smile and look her best for anyone coming to visit.  I understood her message to me that day in this way:

   Do not let my death undermine your optimistic spirit by losing your faith in God.  Do not let my death be a test of your optimism and faith.  Instead let my death and my struggle to stay positive in the face of pain and death strengthen your ability to remain optimistic in the direst of circumstances.

After inoculating me against the power of pessimism contained in the negative circumstances of life, she went on to tell me that only through the complete repair of her relationship with God at the end of her life was she able to face her own death and have this discussion with me.

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