BRINGING SIMCHAS HACAHIM BACK INTO OUR LIVES

                                                                                                                                   By Golda Turner

   Every little girl dreams of the day that she will be a kallah (bride) in a long, flowing white gown. She imagines that fairy tale day when she and her chassan (groom) will stand together beneath the chuppah (marriage canopy). They will go to live in a beautiful big doll house, have a bunch of very good and sweet children, and live happily ever after.

     As time goes by, she finds herself being a Mommy, a chef, a cleaning lady, an accountant, a nurse, a seamstress, a lawyer, and a whole long list of other things, all rolled up into one. The pace of life becomes more hectic, the tasks more complicated.

     And then, just as “Super Mom” thinks that she can’t push too many more minutes into her day, she earns a new title---”Special Mom”. In one fell swoop, the world she built up comes crashing down around her. There is a new language to learn, specialists to visit, a system to conquer, a school district to fight.

     Gone is the little girl with her sweet dreams of a white gown and life size doll house. She has been replaced with an overwhelmed, stressed out, exhausted woman who often feels like she is all alone in a dark, gloomy world. Her joy in life, her simchas hachaim, is gone.

     How can we bring back the simchas hachaim into our lives? How do we get to see the light at the end of this dark and gloomy tunnel?

     The trick is to picture ourselves as little plants, growing from a seed planted deep in the ground. Everything is dark and muddy all around. Yet somehow, from that small seed, a little green shoot starts to grow and burrow it’s way up through the dark and the dirt in order to look to the sky. Soon it will stretch it’s leafy arms up to the bright sunshine.

     We are like that little shoot. We are buried deep underground. We are surrounded by dirt and mud. Yet, we can dig our way out of the dark and the gloom and reach up towards the heavens. If we let ourselves believe that there is sunlight somewhere out there, we can push our way up and burst forth to the bright of day.

     How do we find that sunshine when we are so deep underground? We need only take the first tiny step. We must look inside of ourselves and realize that we are not alone. No matter how gloomy our situation, we can always turn to Hashem and ask him as a personal favor to turn on just a tiny light for us. Even a small light is enough to chase away much darkness. And once there is that tiny light, we can begin to see our way…

     Our sages teach us that there are three partners in every child, the father, the mother, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu (G-d). We need to turn to Him and say, “You, too, are a partner in this child. And You have much bigger and stronger shoulders than I do. It is fair that You should carry a larger share of the burden!” And guess what? He actually will. He was only waiting for you to ask!

     Hashem is always waiting for us to talk to him, to realize that he is there. He often sends reminders our way in order to awaken us. If we don’t notice that He is calling, He may “shout” louder to get our attention. Why wait for Him to send us a crisis to awaken us? We can avoid all the pain and tears by just saying “hello” to Him in our own way every day, by acknowledging His presence in our lives and the lives of our families.

     Not all of us are fortunate enough to be the type of people who gain a true closeness to Hashem by formal davening (praying) or saying Tehillim (Psalms). We are not the kind of big tzaddikim that we read about in stories of our Gedolim. We are simply overwhelmed human beings burdened by the stresses of our day-to-day lives.

     How can we manage to access the wonderful blessings of living with Hashem as our true partner in everything?

     It is amazingly simple. We can start by speaking to Hashem from our hearts about the “smaller” things in our lives and say, “Hashem, please do me a favor and…” For example, you can ask Hashem to open up a good parking spot or help you find that missing item. When He does it for you, remember to say “Thank you“. Show some appreciation. As you go along, you will find yourself talking more and more to Hashem, and actually seeing that He is doing things for you all the time. As your relationship with Him becomes more natural, you will realize that our lives are full of open miracles, occurring each and every day! You will be able to shift your burdens over to His shoulders, confident that He will carry them for you.

     True, you will still be living in this world and dealing with all kinds of things. But you will no longer be bent under the complete weight of your assigned burden. You will not be so unbelievably stressed. You life will not be a living nightmare. When you live your life constantly seeing how Hashem is pitching in and carrying the main weight of your baggage on His very strong shoulders, you will breathe a sigh of relief and begin to “live” again!

     Though you are no longer a sweet little girl, you are now mature enough to come to the realization that while the furniture in your “doll house of life” may not be the color that you dreamed of, or the view is of majestic mountains instead of the endless ocean, life in the doll house can still be very beautiful. Just open your eyes and look around. Hashem has created a beautiful world for us to live in, with all kinds of scenery, colorful and intricate flowers, interesting animals, so many varieties of food, different styles of clothing, all types of entertainment--truly anything we could ever need or want on our travels through this world! And although we have very full suitcases packed with all kinds of experiences, Hashem himself is kind enough to help us carry our heavy luggage as we travel through life!

     True, during our travels we will need to climb many mountains, some more steep than others. But we are not climbing them alone. Hashem is climbing together with us, holding our hand to keep us from falling. During our hike through life‘s mountains, He is guiding us along the way, showing us the mountain flowers, giving us drinks from refreshing mountain streams, telling us to breathe in the sweet and invigorating mountain air, always encouraging us to reach the mountain top. And when we finally get there, we will be able to look around and see the most astounding views from the summit. Each of us will be able to honestly admit that it was well worth the exhausting climb. For only those who have conquered mountains can truly understand the pure joy and exhilaration of making it up to the top of the world.