Topic: A Thought

I can be changed by what happens to me.

I refuse to be reduced by it.

Beautiful to read, lovely to think about, and a lifetime of struggle to live out. I've learned through my own experience and listening to stories of others over the years that it is much easier to read than to do.

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

"You are beautiful...when you let friends have their space, when you believe, when you laugh, or are moved to tears, when you let it just roll right off your back, when you talk about your dreams, when you help a turtle across the road, when you try to do the right thing even when it comes out wrong, when you love." Anonymous

Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible. Virginia Satir

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find it is those who, instead of advice, solutions or cures have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Henri Nouwen

 

Perspective...

When life seems chaotic, you don't need people giving you easy answers or cheap promises.  There might not be any answers to your problems.  What you need is a safe place where you can bounce with people who have taken some bad hops of their own. You need love and understanding and lots of room

Reach Live Preacher

Vietnam War Memorial
Washington DC
March, 2011
A sad and sacred place