Life for me had it's ups and downs. We all have people in our lives who have said and done things to hurt us. We all have people in our lives that have put a negative word in our minds and hearts that have just kind of stuck there like an arrow that pierces our very image of our self. We all have people in our lives that we just wish would acknowledge our existence. That would accept us for who we are regardless of who they wish we were.

Over the years people have come in and out of my life. They have left a part of themselves that is good or bad and that gives me an image of who I am. I drove myself hard to please some whom could never be pleased no matter how hard I tried. I succeeded in many of my jobs because I had a need to please people. Yet sometimes the people I tried to please just never seem to be able to see my success. But they never let me forget my failures.

It hurt. The rejection. The unkind words. The negativity. The pain both physically and mentally were sometimes just too much to bear. I often wondered how I survived all the years I did with all that junk around my shoulders. I often wondered when would enough rejection, unkindness, negativity and pain be enough.

Even though at times I seemed to be walking on air without a care in the world surrounded by many people...I was the most alone person I knew because the people I really wanted it to matter to just did not ever see anything good in me. They just never made me a part of what I was supposed to be a part of. It was just never enough for me to succeed so I just turned all my successes in to failure because I was told that was what I was...a failure.

But thank God my eyes were finally opened. I came to a place where I finally realized that there was really only One I had to please and that was God. It took me almost 40 years to see that in all the years of trying to please others I had pulled away from my God. He was the one who was picking me up when I fell in my image of failure. He gave me strength to carry on. Not those people who could only speak failure into my life.

God has become my bridge over troubled waters and my freedom from failure. I only want to hear just these words come that day....

WELL DONE, MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL CHILD. WELL DONE.

May God show you how well you have done and may you too come to realize that the only one we have to please is Jesus.

God Bless. And Thanks CB for those words.

Matthew 25:21