Emerging Courageous online Magazine

Almost 6 yrs ago, the Lord spoke to me like no other time in my life. His desire
was for me was so clear, it was to share myself with others, to show compassion and love in order for all those who feel lost to see there is a way to find that inner peace that can only
come through acceptance of what is and to let the uncertainty of tomorrow and the pain of yesterday not matter.

I wouldn't be where I am if He hadn't sent someone into my life who showed me in a more in depth way that the Lord is the way, the truth and the light to simply living life in a much happier
and healthier way.

It doesn't mean you don't or won't have bad days for we will always be tested as long as we are here on earth. What makes the difference is how I choose to deal with each test. I know
I have been tested in my life in more ways and more often than others. Sometimes when I look back over my life I am surprised I am still here, but through much sickness, many injuries and
even my own failings, I still am.

Today I know that it is all that makes up the past that has come to make me who I am today. A much stronger individual who doesn't bend to anyone's ways. I simply follow my heart and what I know is the right way to live my life with a compassionate, caring and loving heart.

How often I give thanks for being at a point in my life where I know that whatever happens there will never be that darkness that once was the center of my universe for now all I see is light.
I awaken each day to it, dull or sunny, dry or with showers, it is a light that cannot be seen, it is a light that only I or You can feel. The light of human kindness, taught by the greatest teacher of
them all, Jesus.

I am only me, a single being, with a desire to help others and to be thankful everyday for where I am now for it is so much better than what use to be. Sometimes it is easy to write things,
it is harder to get people to see what is behind the words. They seem to come so easy now, where it use to be so hard to put anything into words, but I pray everyday just to get the message right whether it be in a poem, an e-mail to a friend, a note to a stranger who stopped in my cyber-world to even someone I chance to meet in the real world.

Whether you write the words down or speak them verbally they should never be hurtful words. I feel I have been tested so many times and in so many ways so that I can write words
that are based on truth and knowledge, simply because I write about what I have seen and felt and what I have seen or heard that others have felt. From children who had parents who didn't
get it right to the elderly who were often forgotten by those who are suppose to love them right up until they leave this earth.

My mother and I are an example of choosing to do what was right. When she came back into my life when she became sick after a ten years absence I could have chose to turn her away for all the pain she had caused me and yet I chose to take the opportunity to get to know my mother for I didn't feel we had ever been friends.

I can sit here and write this today knowing that when my mother died, we were friends, that she was glad to have at least two children who only wanted what was best for her and not her money. Although she had already passed on when we arrived at the hospital, she was the most
peaceful I had ever seen her and trust me I had seen her at times she didn't even look like my mother.

I never had this opportunity with my father, he was gone so quickly, and without any warning signs, but I knew in his leaving we were more than friends. I have oftened wondered what was worse, seeing my mother suffer as she did most of her adult life or to lose a father who was
given a clean bill of health just two weeks prior his death, gone, simply to come home no more.

I went through the pain of losing friends who chose to kill themselves rather than try and deal with what was causing their pain, but I know now from my own life what could drive a person to that point, but I also know now what can keep you alive and fighting.

I lost friends to accidents because they made choices that were so foolish and yet I knew the pain of what could happen by not following your own gut instinct. How many times you just wanted to go back and be able to choose again and yet knowing it was not possible.

Today I know it wasn't a choice I made, it was the choice someone else made that cost me the person I was and yet today I have to draw from that the fact that I am now a much stronger person who does follow her own gut instincts, no matter how many times a friend says, "It will
be okay". I no longer have to question where were the friends when things went so wrong? Why if they were friends did they not come looking for me? It was a long hard struggle to forgive a best friend of four years for simply leaving me and harder still to forgive the one who caused me the greatest amount of pain, but I have.

I have felt the pain of knowing a child of mine was in danger, because someone else chose to make a bad choice, and hurt them. I also know that frozen feeling you get when you see your child hurt and you stand unable to move because your eyes can't believe what they are seeing. The fear of not knowing how bad the injuries are and then to watch the day to day struggle they have with pain in order to come back to the little boy who simply loved to run and the fear of not knowing if he ever would again.

So many times those who you thought were a friend, turned out not to be, it wasn't you they wanted it was simply what you could do for them. How hard it was to find a way to get beyond that kind of pain and yet I did that too.

Wow! All these words and yet so many things not even talked about and yet still so much of what makes me who I am. Definately a survivor!

Yes, much of it was painful, but there was nothing that I wasn't able to overcome, it just took longer sometimes to find my way to getting beyond the pain. At least that is how I feel. I don't know why some people are tested and tried more than others but I have come believe
there is a purpose in all that happens in our lives and it is whether or not we choose to see what that purpose is that matters.

I remember a person who didn't see much of a reason to get up for the fear of what might happen to cause more pain was so strong and yet I awake each day now knowing that pain will always be a part of my life, at least physically and yes there will be times of emotional
pain when someone you care about gets sick or hurt or someone doesn't understand, but there is that strength, that forever glowing light of life that keeps the darkness away. My constant reminder that nothing is impossible for the power and strength of One comes from the Lord and lives inside me.

Not everyone has faith, not everyone believes, but I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be who I am if I didn't have both. Well that's my thoughts for today