DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF NOW

This post below was written a year ago for someone who wrote to me..... who was at a crossroad in her life and felt crushed by it. Her story is one which many others share. Life is tough, we know that, but we are asked to be tougher..... to be even much tougher beyond measure. I am resurrecting this post here for a dear friend.

BROKEN BODY - UNBROKEN SPIRIT

Dear friend in the blog,

Such consoling thought it is to know that we are not alone in our trials and difficulties -- that despite differences in culture, traditions, color, and creed we stand connected in the same issues in life.

You have touched a common chord with friends and strangers here in the blog. Thank you for your courage in sharing with us your pain and suffering. We are privileged by your trust, sincerity, and honesty. I hope that the rest of us will do just as well in our own.

Often we are kept where we are by our society and culture; often they too help shape our lives. Undoubtedly we make mistakes in life— getting into the wrong marriages; marrying the wrong people; working in the wrong jobs; having the wrong set of parents, relatives, and friends; living bad decisions. But we never really will know how these things will turn out until the very end. We will never really know how these bits and scattered scraps of our cluttered life would fill up the bigger picture of our existence. Because oftentimes good can turn out bad or bad turn out good in the final end. There will be an end, positively, because no story ever finishes in midstream. Maybe we would come to a pause at a certain point but then again will resume at a triggered moment in time.

Whatever a person would do with his circumstances is purely his decision to make. No one can best tell you what to do. NO ONE KNOWS BETTER HOW THINGS TRULY ARE THAN THE PERSON WHO IS IN IT. Yet the truth remains that there are always two sides to a coin— yours and the other person’s. No matter how you think or feel that you are justified in your opinions or stand, the other end of the issue has his or her own story to tell. So goes every tale heard and told by man since long ago.

Let’s stop here to think awhile--- tell me, do you wake up every morning to cook breakfast and send off your children to school and tend to the nitty-gritty chores in the house day after day? Do you see yourself down on your knees in prayer without end? Do you remember pulling yourself together after a big cry and doggedly carry on with the business of living each time? Do you see yourself picking yourself up every time when all you ever wanted to do was stay down in the dump grovel and feel miserable?

YOU DO! Because that is what a person does whenever wherever around the world. We mortals may be battered, bruised, torn, and tossed around many times in the course of this life journey. But one thing is sure—the spirit within us can never be broken. That is why you do what you do then and now-- and onwards some more. You continue to stand and not fall—maybe battered in body but unbroken in spirit and soul.

Armed with that, DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF NOW. Build anew right where you are at. Develop yourself. Use your God-given talents to seek out new challenges, new meaning, and new direction. Can you teach, draw or paint, write well poems or stories, sew lovely dresses or embroider, and cook delicious meals your friends enjoy. Find out what you are good at. Never mind the kind of marriage you have or the kind of person you married; the important thing now is— YOU. Move on and reclaim your right to be you.

You know, my mom used to tell me long ago that-- sometimes when your ‘adversary’ sees you unperturbed by his blitz on your nerves and emotions, he goes crazy and utterly frustrated by it all. This takes out the wind from his sails. Do this not because you want to get even – but because you understand more. This is your strength--- seeing and knowing more what you can and cannot do. Don’t waste your time on things you can’t resolve, but rather pour all your energies on what is within your ability and control— YOU.

Last but not least, never stop believing that God sees everything and that it is in His magnificent heart to help you overcome. May your hope, faith, and strength increase and be blessed.

God bless you. Bye for now.