DailyConnections.net

TUESDAY THOUGHT 4/22/08

If you’d met my Mother, you’d have thought she hadn’t a problem in the world.  She laughed often and loudly (and was periodically accused of waking the dead or shattering glass).  She loved without restraint, found humor in her own foolishness, shrugged off offenses, and was perfectly willing to speak her mind on all occasions.  That poem — love like you’ve never been hurt; dance like no one is looking, etc. — could have been written about her.  One time Pop said, “Sally, what would you think about doing a Mediterranean cruise?”  By the time he got home that afternoon, she had booked the entire vacation. Gone now more than 25 years, she still drifts gently into my mind daily, as I think that it would be great to pick up the phone and call her about some little this or that.
 
BUT, it’s not that my mother had no troubles.  Pop was a good man, but a bit of a sullen bear, not that pleasant.  Her health was a train wreck (she suffered a heart attack in her 20s, had her first open-heart surgery around 1955 on a totally experimental basis, followed by at least two more such surgeries in the coming years) and was technically an invalid.  Her life was tough, but she never felt sorry for herself, and she never asked anyone else to pat her on the head and speak slowly to her.  (In fact, we used to call her an old battleaxe and swear that she’d outlive all of us.  Pop once said, “Thank God she was sick, or she would have run us all into the grave.”)     
 
My point:  We all have troubles.  We all have problems.  Some of them doozies.  But like my Mom, focus only on the blessings and the many joys God places gently before you each and every day.  God bless.  — jri
 
“Life only demands from you the strength
you possess.  Only one feat is possible –
not to have run away.”
        –    Dag Hammarskjold