"A Good Reminder"

Today I am truly inspired. I woke up thinking ahhh its finally Friday and that was good enough to get me through the day… and then I woke up to an email my mother-in-law sent me.

What you don’t know is that I am truly lucky to have the mother-in-law I do. She is selfless, gracious, caring, loving, and an entire list of other amazing qualities. The list could go on for pages. Whenever I’m around her I strive to be an even better person. She always seems to know exactly what to say and today she hit it head on and I bet she didn’t even know how much I took from the email she sent me. 

 Soooo I felt the need to share it and she titled it “a good reminder”:

Life is Uncertain

Yet we can be sure that sooner or later we will confront a moment when everything comes to a halt, time is frozen as a hideous event takes place—a devastating loss, a traumatic development, a massive and deep wound in life.

There you are, going along, taking things for granted, when suddenly it seems your world is coming apart. Nobody plans for accidents, illness or tragedy. Sudden unemployment, divorce and financial downturns can hit us unannounced and send us crashing into a wall.

What do we do when we get that phone call that changes everything? When the divorce papers are served? When the test results say terminal? When the bankruptcy is filed? How do we handle the devastating events in our lives?

Refuse to take cover

Taking cover is the way many react to the trauma in their lives. They close their eyes, their minds and their hearts. They respond to crises with frustration, failure and fear. They react as children might when afraid of the dark—they pull the covers over their heads and hope the monsters will go away.

Taking cover means surrendering to fear and worry. But the only thing worry does is use up energy. The issue is not whether there are things to worry about. There are! But will worrying add a single minute to your life? No. It will do just the opposite—worry shortens life, disables abilities and makes us miserable.

Taking cover is refusing to face reality and choosing not to find a positive way to respond to adversity. It means accepting defeat, and that is always the wrong response to difficulty.

Choose to discover

Refusing to take cover gives us an opportunity to open the door of hope and move into a season of discovery.

We can discover life’s true values. We can choose to come to our senses, sort out our priorities and learn what life is really about. Perhaps it means a second chance at getting our financial house in order because finally we see the folly of spending all that we have, living for the moment and expecting that things will never change.

We can discover strengths that perhaps we didn’t know we possessed. Through our tears we can say, “Now we’ll find out what we’re really made of!”

We can discover God—the pivotal discovery of a lifetime—the source of our being, and without whom nothing in life is satisfying.

We can discover that contrary to how we might feel right now, life is truly vibrant with beautiful and amazing possibilities. We do have a future and a hope.

Determine to recover

By discovering our life’s true values, our true strengths, our God—then we can recover.

We can move on with hope and gratitude and attitudes that are forever changed, with eyes that see things differently now because life has taken on a new depth. We can choose to recover!

©Copyright 2011 Mary Hunt

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