IMPERFECT Lady

Nothing is hidden.

"Love opens the doors into everything...including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self."  May Sarton

What a great line.

I know this to be true.

I also know, that in dysfunctional families where secrets are kept, there is no love, for love opens the doors to secrets. 

Love wants to know where the trouble lies, where problems are, what is wrong and what is causing pain.  Love doesn't exist where secrets live.

If the other person isn't willing to pass through the door and sharing their real self, the relationship is not based on love...but fear. Fear of exposing their true self.  Speaking their truth, sharing their feelings and expressing their emotions.

Mostly, if you were raised to keep secrets, you were raised to not be your self.

And, love opens the doors to everything....and if there are things you don't want exposed, then love is not there...

Fear is.

Fear of being yourself.

Fear of not being liked or accepted.

In dysfunctional families, especially dysfunctional ones who are also members of a strict religion where you must fit into their idea of what is right, if you don't go along, you will tossed out.

Being different is not okay.

Being transparent about secrets not okay.  And, these are not secrets of surprises, but secrets of harmful actions, folks who are abusive and the abuse one suffered etc.

Keeping sweet a family that is layered in abuse...isn't love.

The greatest fear families of dysfunction subconsciously live with is, that when the doors are open, no love lives there.  

When you add the secrets to the person, how do they change?

Will love be there?

What is the content of the person?

And, are they exposing their own secrets or trying to keep the lid on?  

I love that love opens doors...often terrible and frightening...Real Self.

This can be very good or very bad, depending upon who you truly are.

If your secret self fears being exposed...you will pass on love.

It wasn't until I fully exposed and embraced all my secrets that I knew what love was.

Love means nothing is hidden.

 

What Love is not...

A woman mentioned she was an advocate for Love.  And, that led me to wonder what am I an advocate for?  What is my intention and direction; just how would I classify my advocation?

I even looked up the word "advocate" to make sure I knew its true meaning.

"To speak, plead, or argue in favor of..."

What is it that I plead for or argue in favor of?

Most, and many think I am against family...and religion and perhaps even God and forgiveness...against human kindness.  It often feels like many feel my agenda is the agenda of evil; when I believe its opposite.

I would say, that I am for love, peace and joy, and have found it by leaving all that isn't.

I would say that I argue for the rights of and love of, innocent children...and adults.

It is more impacting to say what you are For, than what you are against. Being against something is relatively easy, you just shun or turn away from it. But when you are for something, you have to explore it...experience it, live it...be with it; stand for it in all things.

I am for truth.  Even when it is ugly and not kind, when it has the capability of shattering my world, I am still for truth.

I am for authentic living...even when it requires me to walk away from family.

I am for real relationships...for not pretending in order to keep 'peace'.

I am for integrity...especially when it is hard to stand in it.

I advocate self-worth, self-love...individual imperfections that make you perfect.

I advocate for reality and acceptance of all things...and our free will to respond as we wish.

I advocate for freedom...and love.

I advocate for the opposite of abuse.

Power, freedom and choice.

And yet, I am seen by those, I believe, still in abusive relationships as a threat or bad or evil....and I can see why.

The most powerful tool we have against abuse is to be free and empowered.  I would be a threat to what you are holding dear, if what you are holding onto is abusive. 

If what you are holding onto is power over someone.

If what you are clinging to requires no new choices.

If what you need is for others NOT to change.

I love that I can fully embrace and hold, that I am an advocate for change in abusive homes...changing the victims into powerful empowered beings...from living in fear to living for Love.

I do not believe that there is ever a Love option in abusive homes...fear is the only path. And, many who have only lived in fear are afraid of love...and its new choices and voices. 

I can only recognize love as being free.  If you aren't free to do and say and be; it isn't love...its fear.  Fear leaves you with no choice. And no choice echoes abuse.

So, I agree with the woman, I too am an advocate for Love.

I love my pictures when I was little, I was always holding hands or babies...even if I had no clue as to the environment of our home, I cared and did my best to love.

When I was a young mom, I was not always so loving...or my love wasn't love but fear.  I love that person too....for she didn't know what she didn't know.

I will no longer hold hands with those who want to keep the family together no matter what, for the 'matter what' is abuse.  I can't hold hands with abuse...

I can't pretend to pretend that love is there; even for family.

I am an advocate for healthy families; where children are safe.

I am now able to be an advocate for love; for I know what love is not.

 

How much have you changed?

There is a cost for being a Leader for Change within dysfunctional families; it typically means you lose your place in the family.  You will no longer be part of it, except to be on the outside.

Changes within families require you to go against your elders as well as family members, where the sentiment that "we are family no matter what" is destroyed.

It is to wreck all the typical safety nests...and to break the silence of compliance...to become the one who dares to question actions, words and motives...to not accept "they did the best they could".

To be the Leader for Change, you will have to see their short comings and make corrections NoT in their life, but in your own.

To see where their actions led and to course correct so you are not party to dysfunction continuing on.

A leader for Change is showing in words and deeds that they will not perpetuate the flow of dysfunction as usual; they will do the opposite and be shunned for it.

Leaders for Change will face persecution and criticism and be hated and hollered at, lied about...they will take the brunt of the family's derision; more so than the perpetrator of the abuse and his accomplice.  Leaders for Change who dare to follow the choice to change, will suffer most from their family.

What makes this journey particularly hard is this alone.  You knowingly do what is against the family's unwritten rules of cohesiveness....you pull and tear apart actions and words to carry the truth forward.

Leaders for Change will see the truth where others don't...and will live it, and not just make it an exercise of the mind; but a way of life.

Leaders for Change are for those who have been victimized by the old system...and not see it as being a victim or a survivor, but that they can literally live to change the whole system...by being the change they want to see in the world.

Leaders for change will be a different mother, daughter, friend....

Leaders for change will do what their parents were unable to do.

Leaders for change will be FOR change and not just accept that abuse happened and life goes on....to forgive and forget, to find the positive among the garbage, but instead find how the garbage became this way and then do different.

I am hopeful that each family has Leaders for Change...and that we can slowly see the numbers begin to drop...so that the percentages of abuse no longer happens within families.

How can people not hear that.  That it is the way these families live and how they are silent or compliant that promotes abuse to thrive....that it is not the laws of the land or even the insane preachings of the churches that is the biggest advocate for abuse; but the family units themselves.

Each individual within the dysfunctional family carries the burden or the virus of abuse. They will carry it forward, unless they are the Leader for Change.

It is the families that slowly slip back into the sameness after abuse who are the ones contributing to abuse.  If you didn't change...abuse is still your friend.

The treatment that I have gotten, the way folks look at me IS how they should be looking at abuse...instead, they see me as delivering evil...while evil is literally destroying these families...from the inside out.

One child at a time....for generations.  

When the evil doers are treated like I have been, then abuse will begin the downward spiral...until then, abuse flourishes while they direct all their anger and rage at me, a Leader for Change.

You are either with it or against it.  Change will be the indicator....how much have you changed?  (and, is it enough to stop abuse?)

Leader for Change...

A Marine that was sexually assaulted, said that she wasn't speaking as a victim or a survivor, but as a Leader for Change...I love how she sees herself as an instrument for change.  Using her life experiences to help others, to make changes so others don't have to experience the awful way she was treated...not so much about the abusers - for that is a given, but from her commanding officers and how their response was felt as abuse, again and again.

I too want to be a leader for change in the way families deal with victims and the way victims themselves deal with families.  

We need to teach others how to have healthier responses so as not to harm victims further.  And to hold responsible adults who know and do nothing to the perpetrators...while demeaning and disbelieving the victims.

The only way we can start turning around and lowering the numbers of children being abused, is to be a leader of changing how we deal with abuse.

Instead of passively feeling as a survivor....I love the role "Leader for Change" inspires within me.  It leaves me hopeful and inspired and to use my experiences to shed light upon a broken system...and ways towards healing and living that changes the patterns of abuse.

To be a leader of change, you have to be willing to lead the change in your own life....to make different choices and to walk different, talk different, be different...everything changes; when you are leader for change.

I love these two ladies, attached by a chain....we can't know who is changing who?

What Part are you Playing?

As I sat with the injustice of the justice system, it came to me that our solutions will not be with the same systems that are now creating the problems; but something totally different.

Changing a broken system with the same tools that created it, Is insane....so the answers will be far from what we have previously thought were the answers.

First of all, the court systems can't be the healing places....for they were built for justice.  

And, I don't believe that Justice is healing for the victims...in fact, the purpose of our court systems is to remove harmful people from access to society; and they are failing where sexual abuse towards children are concerned...at least in our area.

The focus of society and family needs to be on the victims. 

What do the victims need to heal from their encounter with sexual abuse?

What will restore their sense of safety and rightness with the world?

What kinds of groups and services are available for children and adult children of abuse?  What works and what is not helpful?  

Perhaps each story of a sexual predator escaping justice for what he actually did, needs to be followed with what kinds of help there is for his victims. What services will help towards recovery.

It seems to me that we naively believe that by getting the perpetrator off the streets our world will right itself, when there are actually two very separate pathways.

The journey of healing isn't co-dependent upon the long prison sentence...all it does is end the reign of abuse for this one man.  The journey of healing and breaking the cycle begins when family and society pay attention to the victims and what they need.

Sadly, what the victim needs is for our attention to be on them...and society and the justice system gives more rights and leeway towards the perpetrator.

All the maneuvering that happens between the lawyers on both sides to reduce and eliminate each charge is detrimental to the spirits of the victims.

It is to reduce sexual abuse to a sorta bad touch....but, not the devastating event that it actually is.

Also families carry a huge burden in the responsibility in how the child heals.  For the majority of abuse cases happen within families or with close friends....how then do the adults in the family respond to sexual abuse aligations and or court appearances and the knowledge of abuse?  Does life go on as usual?  Are new boundaries set?

Each of us carry the same burden as do our court systems.

My father was released back into society...by the Justice System.

My father was released back to being a father by his family.

In that, they did not estrange themselves from him...for they could not flip the tile that said "father" into "Pedophile" and treat him as such.  It isn't easy; but it is what is needed. 

The family system that allowed sexual abuse to happen, has to be destroyed in order for healing to begin.  

When we say we are against abuse, when it happens within our family, we have to be against the family structure that was in place when abuse happened.  All avenues and beliefs and structures have to be examined.

As I see the Justice system failing the perpetrators, I also see the family units failing the victims, time and time again.  Mostly what I see are victims having to leave the family unit in order to heal; for the family unit is broken and useless in guiding them towards healthy boundaries.

It's brokenness is that abuse is within the family.

Members are sexually abusing members...and there is silence and shame.

How can you keep the family together, when it is broken, and believe that you are against abuse?  When abuse doesn't shatter the family structure, it is the clearest sign that it is built upon abuse...it is the 'normal' ingredient in your family.

Each of us has to look openly and honestly as to how do we support negative treatment within our lives and homes.  This isn't just the responsibility of the Justice System, this is the responsibility of each of us...we all play a part of stopping it or letting it go free into the life of another child.

What part are you playing?

 

 

 

This is Justice!

On the front page of the paper is another man 'convicted' of sexual assault, but only received 1 year, with consideration for the 195 days already served...although it was due to the fact he failed to register as a sex offender....so, it is like he is double serving time...and in the end, when his time is up, he has to move to Wisconsin.  

This is the punishment for sexually abusing a child.  He was able to plea bargain away the other children....and since it wasn't his first time, (failed to register as a sexual predator) it is insane that he will be set free in 6 months.

How serious are we, as a society, about sexual abuse of children?

What is the role of court systems and whose side are they truly on?

What affects do these light sentences have on victims of abuse?

It appears to minimalize their pain and suffering, almost making it a 'joke' to even report for all the dude will get is a slap on the hand.

Seeing this through a victims eyes changes how we feel about the adults who are supposedly there to help us.  If this is help, no thank you.

Somehow the courts in the land have to take serious these offenses against children. I even wonder, is it because it is children that they are so lenient...that there are no big voices in a big body outraged at these light sentences.  

The joke is on society.  We are allowing these predators to roam freely, repeatedly...and how insane, making them sign a register, like that is a restraint. We are letting them destroy innocence and create more wounded...whose pain will bleed into the world.

Hurt people hurt people.

Somehow we have to change the way these guys are dealt with, as well as find resources and places for their victims to go to undo the damage.

The courts used to be the place to seek revenge or at least justice....this doesn't happen with sexual abuse on kids.  

These kids now feel like the courts abused them too, by not taking serious, the offenses against them.  Who is standing by these children? What are they doing to undo the damage?  How many children did this one man affect?  And, his punishment or the consequence...."a year in jail"...well half a year, since he already served 195 days.

So, for half a year he can't abuse children. But, as soon as he gets out, the cycle begins again...oh, but in a new state...this time Wisconsin.

Isn't the Court Systems looking like the Catholic Church....just pass them on to another congregation or population, get them out of my court.

Not only is no one really looking at what he did, no one is looking at the children.  It is like society is doing its best to not really see what is going on in reality.

Perhaps we will have to find solutions to this problem outside of the courts. We will have to empower the children, enlighten the adults. We will have to approach this problem from the angle of the child.

They can't depend on the adults for help...at least not in the court system.

At the very least can't we as adults no longer pretend to pretend, this is justice!

In a Heaven Someday.

On Sunday Morning, why not one more section I love from "Velvet Elvis", by Rob Bell. 

"In the accounts of Jesus's life, often the larger the crowds get, the more demanding and difficult his teachings get. In John 6 he gives a teaching that is so hard to swallow, everybody but a few leave him.  He is constantly trying to find out who really wants it. And so he keeps pushing and prodding and questioning and putting it out there until some leave and the diehards stay. We never find him chasing after someone, trying to convince them that he really wasn't that serious, that it was just a figure of speech.  He didn't really mean to sell your possessions and give to the poor.  If anybody didn't have a Messiah complex, it was Jesus."

"This is what we are dying for - something that demands we step up and become better, more focused people. Something that calls out our greatness that we hope is somwhere inside of us."

"Not only is the way narrow, but it involves suffering. To truly engage with how the world is, our hearts are going to be broken again and again.  Just this past week, I met a woman who is terrified her husband is going to beat her, and another woman who has a degenerative muscle disease that is causing her face to freeze up, and I can think of at least five couples who are splitting up, and...you get the picture. It is your world too. And so we are learning how to suffer well. Not to avoid it but to feel the full force of it. It is important that churches acknowledge suffering and engage it - never, ever presenting the picture that if you follow Jesus, your problems will go away. Following Jesus may bring on problems you never imagined."

"Suffering is a place where cliches don't work and words often fail.  I was at lunch last week with a friend who is in the middle of some difficult days, and I don't have any answers. I just don't. I can't fix it for him. I've tried. And we sat there and talked and ate, and I let him know that I'm in it with him. It isn't very pretty and it isn't very fun, but when we join each other in the pain and confusion, God is there. Sometimes it means we sit in silence for awhile, not knowing what to say. And it is in our suffering together that we find out we are not alone. We find out who really loves us. We find out that with these people around us, we can make it through anything. And that gives us something to celebrate."

"Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we all need - hope that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it. I am learning that the church has nothing to say to the world until it throws better parties. By this I don't necessarily mean balloons and confetti and clowns who paint faces. I mean backyards and basements and porches.  it is in the flow of real life, in the places we live and move with the people we're on the journey with, that we are reminded it is God's world and we're going to be okay."

"Central to reclaiming creation and being a resurrection community is the affirmation that when God made the world, God said it was "good."

"And it still is."

"Food and music and art and friends and stories and rivers and lakes and oceans and laughter...did I mention food?  God has given us life, and God's desire is that we live it. It is the job of the church to lead the world in affirming and, more important, enjoying the goodness of creation. We are not going somewhere else at the end of time, because this world is our home. And our home is good."

"One of the most tragic things ever to happen to the gospel was the emergence of the message that Jesus takes us somewhere else if we believe in him. The Bible ends with God coming here.  God, in the midst of all the people who can imagine nothing better, celebrating life that we all share. The images that Jesus used were of banquets and feasts and celebrations. What do we do at parties such as these? We eat and talk and dance and enjoy each other above all else, we take our time. What does Jesus do almost as much as he teaches and heals?  He eats long meals. As Christians, it is our duty to master the art of the long meal."

"If you find yourself wanting to take me less seriously, let me ask a question: What was the ritual the first Christians observed with the most frequency? Exactly. The common meal, also called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. And what did this meal consist of? Hours of talking and sharing and enjoying each other's presence. Food is the basis of life, it comes from the earth, and the earth is God's.  In a Jewish home in Jesus's day - and even now- the table is seen as an alter. It's holy. Time spent around the table with each other is time spent with God."

"My wife and I threw a party last summer and we called it "An Epic Celebration of All That Is Good." We had a band playing in the backyard and food everywhere, a DJ set up in the living room, all the furniture pushed against the walls, and there were cars up and down the street - and it was just the best. And what was the occasion for the party?  I was hoping you'd ask. There wasn't one.  That's the best reason you can have.  Relax. Slow down. Quit having a purpose for everything. Eat more slowly and enjoy it more. Ask people how they are doing - and mean it. Take more walks. You will get more done anyway."  Rob Bell

I love how the churches will have to start meeting us where we live and not keep selling us the ticket out of here....for it annihilates us and our suffering, it negates our living here and now.  

In my experience God was found in my suffering as well as love...it was there I found out who was who...who was for me and who was not.  

Today I will be with God as I create, eat and just be me.

Rob Bell makes God make sense in a way that the churches never did....he truly is bringing him into this world and not keeping him in a heaven someday. 

 

 

 

Another Level of Learning.

I am exploring different avenues to sell art online...should I use Etsy or Square, have it on this blog, or begin a new Imperfect Lady Shop, and, then what to sell and how. This part is work and hurts my brain...and one that I have been putting off for a long time.

I thought I would need the place to put the art, before actually sitting down and creating inventory.  I have quilts to sell, but not boxes of Cards or sizes of Prints or a Calendar etc.  Geeze Louise, there are options to the options!  But, first I have to know what I want to sell and then find a sight to plop down my Art.

Each site will take a percentage, but they have the framework in place to make uploading new items, having a shopping cart and a way to pay...and then to deposit the money to me.  

I guess, I can start slow and add as I go...I can overwhelm myself with the possibilities!

Here is a quilt that I started last December...all that was done was the background and borders....this year I added the trees and Lady.

This picture is blury, but it shows the whole quilt...

I know it is early, but she has been half complete for almost a year!

And, then I also worked on a new one...(both these were quilted at a quilt retreat - two days of quilting)

I have been wanting to add metal, and here are some washers painted and added onto a string....not so sure, if this is what I was feeling, but it is a start.

She seems the most daring...I love her hat and hair....well her whole demeanor.

I can easily now, plop down photographs on the blog, and hopefully soon become real adept at doing the same for selling online.  

My first task is to create a calendar...and a box set of cards. Now, to pick 12 Ladies...and perhaps a quote for each month. And, see the costs and if there would be interest....

I will learn as I go....for now the road ahead seems dark and unmarked.  But, once I travel it a few times, it will brighten up.

Sharing my ladies online...has taken some really neat twists and turns or maybe not so online, but simply sharing.  Here's too another level of learning!

 

Spreading Hell on Earth.

As odd as it seems to me, I once again will quote about God and Jesus from "Velvet Elvis".  I had give up these two names due to the way they were depicted in my old church...and now they have come back again with a very new and different approach, one that matches my experiences of God.

"Two Realms"

"Now if there is a life of heaven, and we can choose it, then there's also another way.  A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live.  The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be. We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth."

"For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now. He talked very little of the life beyond this one because he understood that the life beyond this one is the continuation of the kinds of choices we make here and now."

"For Jesus, the question wasn't "How do I get into heaven?" but "How do I bring heaven here?" The question wasn't, "How do I get in there?" but "How do I get there here?"

"I was in Rwanda two years ago doing research on the AIDS crisis.  It had been almost ten years since the massacre of 1994 when over 800,000 Rwandans were killed by their fellow countrymen. Yet driving down the street, we passed person after person missing an arm or leg.  Children woh had been struck with a sword were now high school students walking along with a crutch or sitting in a wheelchair."

"If you do any reading on what happened in Rwanda, the word that you'll read most often used to describe it is hell."

"A hell on earth."

"When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter - they are all hell on earth."

"Jesus's desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth."

"What's disturbing then is when people talk more about hell after life than do about hell here and now.  As a Christian, I want to dow aht I can to resist hell coming to earth. Poverty, injustice, suffering - they are all hells on earth, and as Christians we oppose them with all our energies.  Jesus told us to."

"Jesus tells a parable about the kind of people who will live with God forever.  It is a story of judgment, of God evaluating the kinds of lives people have lived. First he deals with the "righteous" who gave food to the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner. These are the kind of people who spend forever with God.  Jesus measures their eternal standing in terms of not what they said or believed but how they lived, specifically in regard to the hell around them."

"The judge then condemns a group of people because they didn't take care of the needy and naked and hurting in their midst. They chose hell instead of heaven, and God gives them what they wanted."

"For Jesus, this new kind of life in him is not about escaping this world but about making it a better place, here and now.  The goal for Jesus isn't to get into heaven.  The goal is to get heaven here."

"Jesus tells of another story about a rich man and a beggar who lies outside the rich man's gates. the rich man dies and goes to hell, while the beggar dies and goes to "Abraham's side," a Jewish way of describing heaven.  This is the one story Jesus tells in which somebody is actually in hell after they have lived.  What is the reason? According to the details of the story, the rich man refused to be generous with the poor man, letting him live a hell on earth right outside of his front door."

....and he goes on to give more examples of bringing heaven to earth or bringing hell. 

"True sprituallity then is not about escaping this world to some other place where we will be forever. A Christian is not someone who expects to spend forever in heaven there. A Christian is someone who anticipates spending forever here, in a new heaven that comes to earth."

"The goal isn't escaping this world but making this world the kind of place God can come to.And God is remaking us into the kind of people who can do this kind of work."  Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis.

What I agree with is that we are either bringing Hell on Earth or we are bringing Heaven to Earth...by the way we live our lives.  

It is pretty basic and simple; your actions will either side with hellish actions, hellish behavior and Hell or not.  

Some how the christians believe that if they can make hell on earth seem kind and forgiving, that is good. That if you can find the kindness, regardless of the hell bringing behavior...you are a better christian and human.  That calling Hell, Hell isn't nice or christian like.  I love where Rob Bell notes that God would describe hell as hell and not heaven.

This author's writing about the bible make the bible make sense, or perhaps the meaning of God and Love...and even shines a light upon how the religions missed their mark, when they focused on escaping this world to find heaven elsewhere.

What does it mean in your life to bring Heaven to Earth?  How is this accomplished?What are the feelings of heaven?  Is it possible to not know the difference, IF all you have ever lived is in one place...mainly hell? 

What is so amazing to me, is that if you don't have the correct perspective on your life, and you are in the position of preacher, you can literally be preaching on how to bring Hell on earth.  And, subsequently, if you are a parent whose actions depict hell, you will teach your children to create more hell on earth.

This is the only explanation for dysfunctional families....spreading hell on earth. And, the only way to heal or remedy this, is to do the opposite.

 

Changes who you are.

In the past few years, I have noticed, that people use November as a month of gratitude, and the lists are of typical nice things, good things, easy gratitudes, if you will, to notice, but rare is it something bad with a silver lining.

It leads me to wonder if this gratitude month exercise would be more beneficial to find something good you learned from something bad.

Being grateful for kindness seems just too easy...like it isn't a challenge, that it doesn't require you to sweat or change or require courage.

Being grateful for unkindness and how it changed you, seems to make you go deeper into life...forcing you to see yourself and the world with new eyes.

The exercise of recognizing the good as good seems so easy, it appears pointless.

Now, how would it be to pull apart your day and take out the tough spots and work with them until you can see their gifts?  This, I believe would be a much more meaningful lesson in gratitude; to be grateful for everything...not just in the beautiful and loving.

For it is in the darkness that we truly can see why it arrived, what its message is, and what it is here to tell us about ourselves. In my experiences, the darkness always brought back to me a part of myself that was absent in my life.  

To me, this kind of gratitude would change the world.

I am grateful for the courage I have to speak my mind, my feelings, especially when it would be easier to be silent.

I am grateful for the strength to walk differently; when it would be easier to join the masses.

I am grateful for being able to stand out and be one with my truths...when I would be more accepted if I did not.

I would like to start a new trend, and have it be everyday; to be grateful for the hardest parts of our lives...for it would change the inner core of everyone who did this exercise.

I recognize, that many folks move along their days, not even recognizing the good, but more often than not, it is in the dark times, we truly get lost.  That perhaps if we all knew, it was then the greatest gifts were given, we would stop and search until we became grateful for each moment of darkness...which always comes bringing gifts.

The darkness is the greatest teacher and if used correctly, can return aspects of yourself that you have given away...or have been stolen with force or power or brainwashing.  

My toughest times have brought me back to me.

I am grateful I have been willing to go where most flee from; to sit in the deepest darkest part of me and see its brightness...to see that imperfect is I am Perfect, coming from whence I came.

When you can see the perfection in the darkness....that gratitude is beyond what the mind can hold.  It is felt in each cell and changes who you are.