Remember when you were young (or not so young), and your relationship with that certain person ended for one reason or another, and suddenly e v e r y single song that came on the radio was about you and them? Remember how you were trying not to think about the entire situation, but without exception every quote and billboard and color and smell and experience brought you right back to a memory of them? Yeah. I’m going to guess most of us have had some kind of encounter like that, and that’s the best way I can think to describe what I have encountered recently. Not the ending of a relationship, but the determination to have one mindset about something and being wholly bombarded with everything in tarnation speaking directly to the thing I have been trying to ignore. At first I was mildly annoyed. Yep, I can definitely recall an several eyerolls. Eventually though, I just had to shake my head in amusement and chuckle a little as I gave in to admitting that my thought process is not always the whole picture.
Hellbent or not, here is what I’ve been reminded:
I matter. My story matters. That means you matter, and your story matters too.
Everything that has and is shaping me (and you) can be used to help and encourage someone else.
There is *always* good to be found.
There just is.
Take it from me, an expert glass-half-fuller; no matter how $#!+ you believe your present situation to be, if you look hard enough there is a perfectly packaged nugget of goodness sitting right next to it. I’m searching for it, you should too. Let’s pick ourselves up; our bruised battle-worn tattered souls, and seek out the good in the middle of each excellent, mundane, or heart-wrenching line of our stories. This is who we are; the fearless, tender, beautiful kaleidoscopes composed of each different fleck and shard of our one magnificent life.
Choosing Hope 