GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 30 – Life is our greatest teacher.....

Today I am grateful for forgiveness.

As I pondered earlier today what to write for my grateful Wednesday post, when forgiveness came to me, I immediately remembered that I had done a previous post on this. I did not have any second thoughts about doing another though, because forgiveness is something that we should forever be grateful for.

Last Sunday I witnessed my eldest niece graduate from High School. Her birth has mixed memories for me, because this was the time that my infertility struggles began taking a pyschological toll on me. I was happy to learn that my sister was pregnant and as any sister should do, I was instrumental in planning her shower. As she prepared and subsequently went into the hospital to give birth, I was no where around. I did not even know when my niece was born and only learnt when my sister-in-law called to find out if I knew. I was upset, how comes I was not called? I however went to visit them both in the hospital, still feeling upset. I later learnt that I was not called about the birth of my niece because my sister was upset with me, as I did not come around when I was needed, to offer help or support to her, being the only sister around, as all the others live overseas.

Why was she upset with me I thought, couldn’t she guess the reasons for my actions. Didn’t she know that I was struggling to have children?  I stayed upset for a good couple of weeks and did not visit my sister all this time. When I eventually built up the courage to go, was only when a friend of mine wanted me to accompany her to visit with my sister and baby. I went with mixed feelings, embarrassed being the most distinct one I can remember.

Thankfully, after a while things between my sister and I did sort themselves out and I was able to embrace her and be the aunt to my niece which I always wanted to be. Somewhere forgiveness came into play and I am so happy it did, as I would not have had the chance to share in this milestone of my beautiful niece, who has been so much to me since the birth of my daughter. She gives herself so willingly to babysit for me and I cannot say enough how much this means to me.

As time passed and I processed things some more, more embarrassment set in. How could I have been so selfish and self-serving? How could she have known what I was going through at the time when I had not told her? Why did I want that special time for my sister to be about me?

When I lost my first baby, my sister was there in the most amazing way for my husband and I and for the birth of my daughter she was again there.

Love you my sister and love you my niece, keep excelling, you both are two very special persons.

GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 12

As a people, we are very ambitious and this is good, there can however be a downside to this, if we are not careful. We could find that we lose ourselves in pursuing self-advancement; a bigger degree for that bigger salary, a bigger house, a newer car, and find ourselves wondering, why are we not happy, why does our life feel so dull and empty. The thing is, we forget to be thankful for the little things that we already have, without which, our lives would not mean much. Our relationships, our health, our faith, our freedom, I could go on.

There are times in my life when I feel I could have achieved more in certain areas, and as a result I beat upon myself and take on a 'woe is me' attitude. Thankfully, I am soon reminded that less I be accused of being ungrateful, I do have many other things to be thankful for.

In my pursuit to become a more thankful and happier person, in general then, I am urged to add a new posting feature to my blog, a segment dedicated to being thankful, which I have decided to call ‘GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS', my gratitude journal, if you will, where I will, on Wednesdays of each week, post one thing in my life that I am thankful for, regardless of how small. 

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Today I am grateful for my in-laws.

I have heard time and time again of bad relationships with in-laws, but I am very blessed to not have this experience with mine.

The mothers-in-law are the ones who get mentioned the most as it relates to conflicts. I have had a few situations with my mother-in-law that could have lead to a strain on our relationship, but thank God, forgiveness worked for us.

I just want to use this post to honor my in-laws for who they are to me and my family. Not for one minute do I feel like anything else but family, when I am around them. They adore their grandchildren and seldom pass up any opportunity to help out both physically and financially.

For this I am indeed grateful.

GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 11

As a people, we are very ambitious and this is good, there can however be a downside to this, if we are not careful. We could find that we lose ourselves in pursuing self-advancement; a bigger degree for that bigger salary, a bigger house, a newer car, and find ourselves wondering, why are we not happy, why does our life feel so dull and empty. The thing is, we forget to be thankful for the little things that we already have, without which, our lives would not mean much. Our relationships, our health, our faith, our freedom, I could go on.

There are times in my life when I feel I could have achieved more in certain areas, and as a result I beat upon myself and take on a 'woe is me' attitude. Thankfully, I am soon reminded that less I be accused of being ungrateful, I do have many other things to be thankful for.

In my pursuit to become a more thankful and happier person, in general then, I am urged to add a new posting feature to my blog, a segment dedicated to being thankful, which I have decided to call ‘GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS', my gratitude journal, if you will, where I will, on Wednesdays of each week, post one thing in my life that I am thankful for, regardless of how small. 

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Today I am grateful for Forgiveness. 

Pardon, mercy, amnesty, exoneration are some of the words used by the English Thesaurus to define forgiveness.

Forgiveness is hard work and can take a long time and I would imagine all of us have had situations where we need to forgive persons who have wronged us. Many times it is persons who have the easiest access to our most delicate self, who end up hurting us the most.

When I find myself having to forgive, I usually remove myself from the person. (Well, that’s a nice way to put it, but it is just simply malice). If this is not possible, I try to limit interaction with them. As this time passes and after much processing and over-processing of the issue, after getting upset and feeling victimized over and over again, I find that I slowly begin to move towards forgiveness. This involves taking responsibility for anything that might have inflated the conflict on account of my doing; maybe if I had done things a different way; maybe if I had said things differently; maybe if I had been a little more open about my feelings to them. After getting past this phase, I find that I am not as upset with the person I need to forgive anymore, as I have taken some of the focus off them. I have taken some of the power away from them. Believe it or not, it is because we give people the power to hurt us, why they are able to. Before long I am able to embrace that person again (albeit, cautiously at first) and accept them back in my life.

One of my older sisters once said to me, sometimes persons react according to where they are in their lives; maybe they are not able to process things the way we expect them to. Sometimes hurt arise when persons judge us without knowing pertinent information about us as well. I am aware that sadly, we do suffer intentional hurt at times and for this I would imagine the process towards forgiveness is harder. Some of us might to even get there.

With this said, my path to forgiveness might not be your path at all, and I am hoping it can be of help to you.  Sadly, many of us are not really able to forgive as I have come across persons who hold on to things for years and years. This is not healthy to say the least, it causes us to become bitter and self obsessed. Further, this is certainly not the way Christ intended for us to live. In Matthew 18 Verse 21 to 22, Peter asked how many times we should forgive our brother. Jesus responded, not 7 times but 70 times 7. How about that? From one who suffered so much at the hands of mankind and was able to forgive, who better to hear this from. What this is simply saying is that we should forgive, just as Our Heavenly Father forgives us, every chance we get.

For this, I am extremely grateful.

WHAT REALLY IS HAPPENING WITH OUR CHILDREN???????

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
Children born to a young man are like sharp arrows in a warrior’s hand
Psalm 127: 3 & 4

Lately there has been so much news about violence among children. There were about two videos shown with children fighting in school buses. Then there was news a couple weeks ago about a school boy who stabbed another one to death, allegedly, over a girl.

The latest one, and the one that I want to focus on is about a group of boys (young boys, the youngest being 13), who lit another one on fire because he reported them as having stolen his father’s bicycle.

I cannot imagine that so much anger and hatred is in the minds of our children these days and I cannot help but wonder if it is the current climate of anger and unforgiveness around us that is rubbing off on these children, or is it the homes for which they come, who do we hold responsible for this? When I was a child, we fought with fists, and very rarely we would use sticks. But there was hardly any incidents including weapons like guns and knives.

This poor youngster has burns, some third degree, over 80% of his body and is currently fighting for his life and in an interview the other morning on the Today Show, with his mom and his doctor, the doctor was saying that he is not in the woods yet, much more to be out of it, so all in all, they are dealing with a very grave situation.

After the interview, the boy’s mother broke down, as she was understandably in so much pain and was trying hard to fight back the tears as she spoke. The Today Show asked her permission to show this breakdown on air, so that it will hopefully send the message out that incidents like these leave families in too much unnecessary pain and something needs to be done about them.

Right about this time, it hit me because it is really hard to see a parent in pain, as you start picturing yourself in the same position. Tears understandably, began welling up in my own eyes as I thought, what kind of world am I getting ready to send my son in? I really felt at this point that I would keep him home, home school him or something and just lock him away from all this callousness, because no one is exempted from falling victim to this.

Imagine so many of us have to fight the ravages of infertility to have our children and then only to have to face the reality that a brutal world awaits them and there is not much that we can do by way of protecting them from it because, let’s face it, they have to face the challenges of this world and we just simply cannot be there at all times to shield them from what it will throw their way. All we can do, is our best to prepare them, but that’s about it.

This is when we have to draw heavily on our faith in God and entrust them into his care and keeping.

I wrote recently about couples who begin praying for their unborn children from as early as the intercourse stage and I must re-iterate that this is a good thing for every God-fearing person to do, because I do believe that this results in better children, who will result in better people in our world, thus eventually making our world a better place.

Be encouraged therefore, and until next time, keep clinging to hope.