Live, Laugh, Love, Forgive, and Move On

To many times we let the hate in our minds over take the love in our hearts. 

We let grudges, and unresolved conflicts tear us apart.

To many times we want to act tough, 

Rejecting apologize because they're just not enough.

Never forgiving others mistakes, but expecting understanding for our own,

living life in such a hateful state, we'll all end up alone. 

Not bothering to take responsibility for damage that we've done.

Just dropping relationships, and shooting out hatred like a gun.

If we all keep deflecting blame, and acting like we don't care,

Soon there will be no more love to spare.

If hearts keep hardening with no more warmth to spare

Love will become obsolete, and all kindness will disappear.

It is important to learn to care for more than just ourselves.

Put away our judgments, on the shelves.

Selfishness is a destroyer by design,

Removing compromise of any kind.

We must learn to forgive before we hate,

Rebuild the bridges before it's to late.

Challenge:

As the start of lent begins I challenge you all to give up hate.

To let go of your grudges, and move past the hurt.

Move past the feelings that harbor your anger and negative energy. 

Allow your heart to forgive, to heal, and to move on.

Today I leave you with a quote that my mother once said:

"Life's too short to spend even one moment angry. Nobody's perfect. Not me, not you, not anyone. Live, Love, Laugh Forgive and Move On."

Faith, Be the Hope

Today I want to talk about something that I'm normally very silent about. I want to talk about faith. Not any one particular type of faith or religion, just faith in general. The one thing you put your trust in, the thing in your life that gives you hope. That one thing you put your emotional trust in, and rely on to reassure you that things will be ok, and work out for the best. For some people it may be God, Karma, or the planets, and stars aligning in a certain way. What ever that faith may be in, it can be pretty heart breaking when something happens to test or shake that faith. When everything you believed in since you were young, when the blind confidence you have always had in that higher being or magical working of the universe is suddenly shattered.

For me personally it was a faith in God. It was drilled into my head, and my heart that as long as you are a good person, and live for others, do as Jesus would, God would protect you, answer your prayers, and never abandon you. My family is very religious all the way around, we went to church every Sunday together, and not because we were forced to, but because we wanted to. My mother and I sang every Sunday in the choir that she started for the earlier mass, she also taught ccd. My family tried everyday to do good deeds, and live as good people (not that we are perfect by any means we've all made our share of bad choices). So naturally when we got the deviating news that my mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer after the initial shock, we made our peace with it, because God was going to save her. As long as we prayed, and continued to be good people God would answer our prayer, and save my mom. He would give us a miracle I was sure of it.

After a long fight my mom was deemed cancer free. Amazing, but I knew she would be, God was on our side. But not even a month being cancer free the cancer moved to her spine, and into her brain. Most people would be so scared. Nope not us we were surely going to get our miracle.

Except this time we didn't get our miracle. Instead we got to watch the most beloved person in our family suffer, and fight everyday with a smile on her face, despite the pain in her body. If anyone was a definition of an angel on earth it was my mom. I'm not just saying that because she was my mother. She made every decision with her heart, even if it wasn't the best thing for her. Creating smiles in the darkest places, and friends in the unfriendliest of times.

I just couldn't wrap my head around it. My whole world shattered as I woke up that morning to the sounds of her last breaths, a memory I live over, and over every night. An image, and a feeling I will never be able to shake.

All my faith, all my trust, all my love for God, gone in that moment. Replaced with anger, and hate. If he couldn't save the one person I've seen everyday live in his image, how could he possibly be real.
For many reasons I couldn't bring myself to go to church after that, and honestly to this day I still cant. I may never get the explanation I need or the answers I seek. But what I have learned from this, is that even when your faith is shaken, live for the people around you. Be kind to others to better their lives not to have some alliance with a higher power.

I didn't write this to convince people to be religious or anti religious. I think having  faith in something is a good thing. Hope is a magical thing.

I wrote this to give you this challenge today:

If your faith is battered, and your belief shattered, no matter how hard it is take the strength you have left, and go be someone's hope. If you've lost your faith go help someone else  keep theirs. Live for the people around you. Better yet, reach out, and help someone rise from their own despair. Create change, exhume love. Be hope.

We are All Living Miracles

I came across something today while I was browsing the net, and I'd like to share it with you. It really got me thinking "Wow people honestly don't know what kind of impact they can have on other peoples lives."

This really shows that we have no idea how we can save some ones life. A person so grateful to the other simply for staying up in a dorm bathroom with them, because for what ever reason they were feeling unimportant, and unloved. This simple act of kindness restored hope, and faith into someone resulting in her deciding not to take her own life. That right there is what a true miracle is. We all have miracles living inside of us, we just have to look deep within, and decide whose miracle we chose to be.

I want you to think about this image, and the next time you think that what you're going to do isn't going to make a difference, think again, and remember this story. It's the little acts of kindness that produce the greatest results.

Again it shows gratitude to another person who isn't even aware of the impact they had on another persons life.

This picture clearly shows how a bond between two people can motivate, and encourage someone to do the right thing, and make them so happy that their thoughts of hurting themselves become nothing but a figment of the past.

This also shows how a bond between two people can be so strong, loving, and fun. They shared everything and trusted each other with everything, and to them it means everything.

These last two demonstrate how people can be with us, beside us, taking care of us for our whole lives, and yet we can be completely oblivious to them, and their love. This mostly happens with friendships, you have the friend who takes care of everything makes everything ok, takes care of all the problems, and there is the friend who though loves the other to death doesn't always fully appreciate what they do, and doesn't always show their gratitude. These are just differences in personalities, because they both view the world differently, and respond to situations, and relations with others in different manners. But in the end their care, love, and support of one another is all the same. Still resulting in a solid life long friendship. 

So as you walk away from your computer, and out into the world try to appreciate all the people around you, because we all are going to need each other at one point or another.