Life

Can you love if you have never been loved?
Can you forgive if you have never been forgiven?
Can you give mercy if you have never been given mercy?
Can you believe for healing if you have never been healed?

Wouldn't it be great if we could do all these things first? Experience teaches so much. I remember my mom telling me so many times that she wished SO badly that I would learn from her mistakes instead of making my own. And you know, I wish that for my own children too. But then I wouldn't be me. It is kinda funny how life works...how God works. It takes many people going through many things to reach many people. If only a few people got breast cancer I can assure you that my own experience would have been very different. The fact that SO many people have had it gave me such a wide range of people to talk to. People my age, people who were totally different than me, people who were very similar to me, people I could even reach and help, the list goes on and on.

I don't quite think I will ever in my life understand why we have to go through the things that we go through. I don't understand why people in general have to suffer. I mean, if you look around you at others and in your own life, you are either just coming out of a difficult situation, are currently in one, or will be going in one shortly. I remember Dave Ramsey saying once that everyone has a MAJOR situation once every 10 years. If this is true, then I shouldn't have any more major events in my life for another 40 years. Because I have had 4 MAJOR events in the last 4 years. All of them literally back to back with only a month or so break in between.

I'm not even sure what I have learned from this yet. I look at the events and still honestly don't understand. But then again I see all kinds of things all around me going on that I don't understand either. But as a friend said to me yesterday...the bible says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Well let me just tell you...I'm sick of the forecast. Are you? I'm ready for some stinkin' sunshine. I'm tired of thinking my middle name must be Job. I'm tired of fighting for everything I have ever known. But I know one thing for sure and that is that I will ALWAYS get back up. I may get knocked down and it may appear that I am down for the count but that is always when I get up kicking and screaming.

Sometimes you have to take life by the horns, look it square in the eye and say "I'm not giving up"!!!!!!! I think sometimes we so quickly forget what we are made of. We forget what is deep down inside of us and that is the power and strength to GET BACK UP! I don't know what you are going through right now but whatever you do, don't let it keep ya down. Sometimes we are going to get down. Sometimes it is going to "feel" like you will never get out of your current situation. Sometimes life just really does suck. But think about a time in your life when you DID get back up and you DID overcome a hard time. Then hold onto that. Never stop dreaming. And whatever you do...never, ever, ever give up.