How sad life has become.

If God brings you to it, he'll bring you through it.

I have trusted in this phrase throughout most of my entire life. It has not ONCE failed me. And THAT is saying something after this past two weeks. How could so much tragedy be fit into such a short amount of time? Lately, I've had a HUGE wake-up call to life and after embracing the several curve balls He has thrown at me, I feel as if I am in a better place. My mother and I were talking about this feeling yesterday after we volunteered at her work.

A week and a half ago, one of my favorite uncles found out his wife was cheating on him. The hurt he must have felt is nothing I could ever imagine. There is a bonding chemical in your brain that after you have spent more than a year "with someone", after you have sex, and/or you have a baby with someone will be released attaching you to that person. The more you do the above things, the more the chemical is expressed until, there it begins to become depleted and not as much is expressed. However, if you are with the right person, you'll still feel bonded and not have to worry about never feeling love (which is the slang term for this chemical). Could you imagine being with someone for 20+ years!? Imagine the amount of the chemical that was expressed and then having that RIPPED from you, like a band-aid. His sorrows were great. That much I know. But, in the past week, he has accepted his troubles and his obstacles. Now, like myself, he can see the sky as blue and the grass as green. He can feel the wind nuzzle his face and smell the seasons in the air.

For the other tragedies in my life, I cannot say the same thing. well... except for myself and Ana. Ana is a good friend of mine and last sunday got into a life-threatening car crash. On Wednesday, when she returned to school, she told me that she wasn't HAPPY the car crash occured but, she WAS thankful. She told me that things that used to feel so important to her no longer were, she was just thankful to be alive. I did not go through a horrific event such as that but, in my own way, I am SO thankful to be alive.

Last night I found out that a committed member of my church and family friend passed away from cancer. She was a woman full of faith and was fighting a huge battle. I never knew her well but, I pray for her family. She had young children and old children. Her middle child, a girl on my soccer team, was one of my sister's best friends growing up. Even now, she is a good friend of Kathryn's and my own. I could not imagine what it would feel like to loose your mother. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up crying from such a nightmare. Those are the nights where I lay in my bed until my alarm clock goes off hours later.

All in all, life is a blessing and a tragedy. It is only up to you to decide how you will view what He brings to your door. I used to believe it was a tragedy. Sometimes I still do but, in the depths of my soul I still feel it's blessings. Because, life is beautiful. There is no other way around it. Life is interesting and it is your own to be lived. It is too short to feel regret, mistake, sorrow, and old wounds. Embrace your enemies or else you will turn against yourself. And when in doubt, look to your soul to point you in the right direction. He is always watching... and if you dont believe in Him, well, you will always be looked out for whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen."

I love life.
And I recommend that you should as well.