Much of our daily life is spent worrying. Life gives us many reasons to wonder how things will work out for us. We worry about our finances. Health is a major concern for most. Careers, jobs and studies have us worried. If we have a family, we are always worried about their health and welfare.
Life on this planet is filled with challenges. Every day, we learn about new diseases that threaten our health. We try to eat healthy, but each day, new research tells us that certain foods cause problems, so we may give up eating them, only to learn that another wave of research tells us they are good for us. We then resume eating them until we find it is not good anymore. We feel we are on a roller-coaster ride with little comfort.
Natural disasters abound, whether earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, droughts, record heat waves or frigid temperatures. Besides physical challenges, there are conflicts between neighbours, communities, cities, states, countries and cultures. All these crises cause stress.
Medical science has discovered that worry can lead to stress, which in turn can affect our physical and mental health. There are numerous studies on how stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline affect us. The purpose of these hormones is to help us when in danger so the body can either fight or take flight. Over extended periods, when not faced with physical threats to our lives, we bathe our organs in these hormones, contributing to stress-related illnesses. We are in a vicious cycle and wonder how we can stop it.
One reason that people worry is that they fear the outcome. Is there a way to overcome life’s worries and live in peace and joy?
Each of us was created by God, the author of our lives. God knows how each of our journeys will end. It is the journey from the beginning to the end that needs to unfold. Some parts of our lives are laid out already by actions we committed in the past. We also have some free will in which we can make choices about what happens along the way. However, how we end up is already known to God. Along the way, our lives will take various twists and turns. But the ultimate end of each of our stories is that we will reunite with God. God sent us out to the world, and we must return to God eventually.
The final scene for each soul is that we will end the cycle of living in a world of pain and sorrow, of suffering and illness. We will have our final scene when our soul is welcomed back into the Home of God, where there is all love, happiness, tranquillity and bliss.
