Life Lessons

" Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever."
 -- Isek Dinesen

Our children do not belong to us.  They are given to us for a time to love and nurture and teach.  Then we need to let them go to make their own mistakes, live their own triumphs and joys, learn their own llife lessons.

Sometimes when I see my daughters make the same mistakes or have the same problems again and again, I want to intervene and point the way.  I want to point out the pattern for them in the hopes that they can see it and learn the lesson.  I think I have limited influence.  We all have to find our own way.  We all need room to "make the big mistakes" [Dixie Chicks].  No one can make the mistakes or learn the lessons for us. I did what I could to guide and teach.  Some life lessons just have to wait until later in life. Maybe some mistakes are made over the course of many lifetimes and so are deeply entrenched.  Either way, it is only that one person, that one spirit within each of us who can change the course of a life.

Pray for others, but pray for yourself.  Pray that you can learn the lessons you came to earth to learn, and that you learn them quickly so that you can live a life of joy and happiness. I say to myself-- let go of worry.  Worry can not change or add constructively to any situation.  Love can.  Love sent across the miles for others is efficacious, but the most potent form is the love we can apply directly to the people we meet and to ourselves.

Loving, really loving myself is my first and most important vocation now.  I have heard that same line for 40+ years, that we must first love ourselves before we are capable of loving anyone else.  So many people have tried to help me in so many ways; I have had many messengers from God pointing the way.  I will be 56 in a couple of weeks and just lately, the past year or two, I have felt a shift, I am beginning to feel unconditional love and goodness for myself; there are brief moments where I actually can feel goodwill, love, and compassion.  It is not too late, it is perhaps the appointed time.

Some lessons take a long time to learn.  My prayer for each of you is three fold: that you can learn as much as possible through joy, and that what you can't learn through joy you can learn quickly.  Lastly, that you can be present, really present to the miracle that is this life you have; every day, every minute.