Thursday of Thankfulness – Jan 24, 2013
I came across a parable today that struck me as very relevant and a good one to keep in mind. I wanted to share it:
A story tells of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, she wrote in the sand:
“TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE”
They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but her friend saved her. After she recovered from the near drowning, she wrote on a stone:
“TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE”
The friend, who had slapped and saved her best friend, asked her, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand, and now, you write on a stone, why?”
The other friend replied: “When someone hurts us, we should write it down in sand, where the winds of forgiveness can erase it, but when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone, so no wind can ever erase it.”
LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BLESSINGS IN STONE.
Author Unknown
One of the biggest problems I’ve had in my life is focusing too much on the hurts and not enough on the blessings. I call the good things in my life ‘blessings’, because I feel like all of these good things came from somewhere outside of myself. I truly don’t feel like I deserve to have as good of a life as I do have. But, I do have a good life, somehow. While I can’t help but wait for ‘the other shoe to drop’, I am learning to live in the moment and appreciate these experience I have as I have them.
This blog as become my place to write in stone, because even if the website is gone, these words will last forever somewhere in the infinity of the internet. So, here are some blessings I am going to “Write in Stone”:
1) Three wonderful children who are the result of all of the sorrows of my life. Basically, if I had not had the same life, I would have never had these children. If I had not had these children, I would not be here now because I would have died a long time ago. They have saved me and they have brought me to life. And, they don’t even know it. They are blessings for which I give thanks every single day.
2) Having the experience of being a mother. These children I live with are amazing and teach me new things every day. I have no idea how I ever earned the right to care for them and know them before they become the great humans they are destined to be.
The only thing I’ve known since I was a tiny girl was that I wanted to be a mother. That doesn’t sound particularly pretentious, though, so I used to pretend I wanted to have pretentious careers so that people would think I was a high achiever.
Nope. I am a mother, and I want to be a farmer. So there.
3) Having one good friend that has actually stuck with me through all of my problems and the long path toward my solutions. There’s no way I could ever repay this debt.
4) Feeling love for myself, for my family members, for friends, for life, for the world. Love is a blessing, even when it results in sorrow.
5) Sorrow is a blessing because it is the other side of joy. I would not know sorrow had I never known joy.
6) I am blessed to have known joy in my life, no matter how brief.
7) I am blessed to be able to think critically, to think philosophically, and to think strangely. Sure, I may be slightly insane and referred to as ‘eccentric’, but at least I can think.
8) I am blessed to know that I am strange and be at peace with that. It feels good to have confidence and realize that I am who I am because there is nobody else I can be, no matter how much pretending I do. It is good to finally realize that I don’t have to pretend.
9) I am blessed with extraordinarily good health. I rarely get sick. Of course, when I get sick it’s basically like seven illnesses at once… but at least it’s infrequent.
10) I am blessed to have a stable financial situation. I do not need for anything. I own a house in a safe and quiet location. I have room for several gardens and space for projects I want to do. I don’t have a lot of fancy stuff, but feel content with my situation nonetheless.
11) I am blessed to be able to look forward to my future. I never could look forward to my future with anything other than dread because I felt trapped in my own mind and, by extension, in my circumstances. I have progressed to the point where my mind is a now just a setting, not a trap. I can choose to dwell in my mind, or I can choose to dwell in the real world. I choose to dwell in the world and make my future what I want it to be.
12) I am blessed to be able to see the world with a clarity I was never before capable of. Everywhere I look, I see things as new and special and they fill me with love and joy and peace.
I have a lot of blessings, and I am thankful that I can finally realize them.