Saturday, November 3, 2012

When the Road gets Tough...



"Sometimes we have to feel weak before we can know how strong we are and sometimes we have to be broken to know that we will never be shattered again"

What a Journey!

For a person who does not naturally love change, I sure have had my fill of it in the past couple of years. 
Some amazing....some excruciating and some that are both all at the same time.
I've stretched and grown and changed right along with all of these changes. I have had to take a long look at myself on many occasions and make decisions based on what I saw deep inside. 
Some things were hard to look at and even harder to deal with or change....some were pleasantly surprising.
By far, this has been the hardest, most tiring and time consuming chapter of my life but standing where I am right in this moment, I know I am also more really Me than I have ever been in my entire life too.
Growing up as a person who needed to have everything perfect or to at least have the illusion of perfection....has made making the tough and unpopular decisions that much harder. 
I have felt weaker, more broken and less capable than I have since I was a young girl yet, the quote above has proven itself so absolutely true.
In the middle of it all, I have surprised myself with all that I have taken on, over come and learned. 
As I told my kids many months ago concerning the dramatic changes that were unfolding,
"It's not the end of the world, it just feel like it right now"
I know even they would agree.

Going through dark days, weeks, months....
is hard and sometimes even feels like we won't make it but that is not truth.
The truth is, change and difficulties are an opportunity to become.
What we become through it all is up to us even if the circumstances or hardships are not.
I've said it all my life, 
"stepping stones or stumbling blocks"
It's up to me.
I have stumbled, I have fallen and even felt crushed but I have chosen stepping stones.

Along the way, I have discovered that in the deepest crevices of what at times felt like the darkest coal of my heart....there existed veins of the brightest, most pure gold. 
It's hard work to chip away at the coal, it's sometimes even harder to let God do it for you.
In the end, it is all worth it and my Faith in the fact that I am being held by the biggest most gentle and loving hands of the universe is strengthened once again.

He truly is my strength when I am weak and has shown me that He created me to be strong and whole and to shine like pure gold.
Dark times will come, to all of us in one form or another....but whether we can see the sun or the stars....or maybe even a light house in the storm....there is a always a light.