Thanks?

I thought this was really profound...there are many things, bad things, that have happened to me that I can honestly say I'm grateful for.  One of them is my former marriage and resulting divorce, which, with all the baggage it left me with, taught me so much about sticking up for and loving myself and which also prepared me to be with the right person I am with now.  Like I just said in my last entry, I don't know that I'll ever actually be grateful that my mom died.  But this writing is a beautiful testament to the fact that all the bad experiences are what grow and purify us.  And there ARE great things that can come out of any horrible loss or experience if we will allow them to.

Prayer of Thoughts by John W. Doll

     Thanks for the hardship and pain I experienced as a child; the sickness and death I survived.  They were only lessons I learned in becoming a man, and not punishment and guilt for things I had only thought in my mind.
     Thanks for the painful need for acceptance I had as I tried to replace the loves I had lost.  The need gave me an understanding and empathy for others with even a greater need for love and understanding than myself.  It gave me the way to gain my acceptance by giving my love to other even more barren hearts.
     Thanks for the loss of a parent, so needed, so loved.  It taught me by example of my mother's equal loss and how strong a human can be in the face of tragedy.  Her dignity and strength were beyond my comprehension and yet, through her example, I learned.
     Thanks for the strength and hope through each stage of life to continue to improve and understand not only my own life but also all my brothers and sisters of the world.  It is only through loving ourselves that we can understand the meaning and true beauty in the greatest gift of love.
     Thanks above all for being a caring and loving God who resides within each of us to remind us that impossible is possible and that forgiveness is not only possible but necessary.
     And most importantly of all, thank you for reminding us that love is the key to all the questions, fears and desires in our small but beautiful world of yesterdays, todays and tomorrows.

John W. Doll (c) 1999 from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery and Nancy Mitchell Autio