I’ve started and stopped writing this blog three times–getting a paragraph into it then hitting the delete key and erasing it all. The truth is, I’m really tired this evening. So my ability to express thoughts in a coherent fashion is somewhat impaired. My apologies.
I am grateful this evening for many things. From the time I jolted awake this morning around 5:30 a.m. until now, dozens of things have brought me to a place of gratitude. I realized that this is how I live my life now–like a flower or plant that leans toward the sun, I lean toward gratitude. I cultivate and nurture a heart that looks for–and finds–reasons to thank God or whomever one offers thanks to. I am also coming to understand that, while I have for most of my life I have been a grateful person, the difficulties I’ve faced over the past 18 months have sharpened that attribute, heightening my awareness of all that I have to be grateful for at a time when everything seemed to be collapsing around me. I have been forged in the fires of challenging circumstances, and while there have been many times I’ve cursed all these wonderful growth-producing experiences, I know that I really am a stronger person because of the things I’ve been through. I guess what doesn’t kill you (do you in) really does make you stronger. Go figure.
I know I’ve been promising my faithful readers that I will get more articulate and expressive and insightful with these blogs, and I will. Unfortunately, tonight is not the night! I have given it the proverbial old college try and fallen a bit short. However, I can offer words from someone else more articulate than I am tonight by sharing again one of my favorite poems of standing strong in the midst of troubles. I offer once again the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley:
Invictus Out of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
