Miracles

About year ago my brother commented that 2010 would be a year of miracles for the people in my family. I looked at all my brothers and sisters needs and thought of the miracles they needed in their lives. I come from a large family so this took a while. I decided to start from oldest to youngest and list the miracles I believed they needed in their life.

My oldest sister needed a divorce, but not only that she needed to be safe. (I'll get to that reason in another blog.) The next sister in my family has her husband overseas in a war zone and she needed him home safely. My oldest brother is going to school and working full time and I felt he needed the miracle of getting finished as soon as possible. I wanted my own miracle of publication. I have been working on a novel for the last three years and hope to get it published. A feat I have found to be very challenging.

After myself I have another brother who has been hoping to get married and start a family. I find this interesting because I was married at a very young age and never thought that finding someone to marry would take a miracle, but for my younger brother this feat has proved difficult.

So now that I have listed five people I need to finish with the last three. This leads up to my sister who is waiting for a baby to adopt. She has been married for several years and has known since she was sixteen that getting pregnant would most likely not be possible. She and her husband have worked so hard to get thing in order so they can adopt.

My youngest sister just had a baby this year and that was a miracles because anytime a woman brings a child into the world it's a miracle. She and my nephew are happy and healthy. This takes me to my youngest brother who is also out of the country. He has been ill and needed a miracle of health in a country not known for it's medical expertise.

So there's my list. I handful of people I love all hoping for a miracle. I'm happy to say that my brother in law in the war zone just returned home safely so there is one miracle down. My brother found a wonderful woman to marry and are at this very moment enjoying marital bliss. My brother will hopefully be done with school this spring. My youngest brother did get the medical help he needed and is doing well.

So that just leaves my two sisters and myself. My oldest sister is still waiting on her divorce, but things are looking promising. My youngest sister is on a list for expectant mothers who want to place their baby's for adoption to look through and pick from. So if anyone out their reading this knows someone placing a baby for adoption and needs a super wonderful mother for their child let me know because you won't find better parents then my sister and her husband.

That leaves myself. I still haven't found a publisher for my book even though I came close this summer with disappointing results. (Once again I will leave that for another blog).This was a year of miracles for my family and we still have three more months left. I am hopeful that these last few months will provide the rest of the miracles I've listed, but if not I still am grateful for the once that have come to past.

I've Been Thinking...

Today has been a day of deep thoughts. (Not the silly ones on SNL, but real deep thoughts.) Out of the many thoughts I've had today this one thought has stuck with me. I have actually had this thought many times before because of the situation my sister is in and today I feel like sharing this thought. So here it is...


YOU ARE NOT AN ISLAND!

Yep I am yelling to everyone reading this. You are not an island. The choices you make in life affect more than just you. They affect people who love you. They affect people you work with. They can even affect perfect strangers. Your choices matter and are very powerful. They can help build a community or tear one apart. Your choices can hurt or help. They can change lives for the better or worse.

We are all guilty of making bad decisions in life. For some it is taking that first drink of alcohol, or that first cigarette. For others it might be drinking and driving. Even the choice to have sex is a decision that can change lives.

I know for my sister she is thinking her choice to marry Richard was a bad one and at this point I totally agree. She did however bring up the point that this type of thing can happen to anyone and she's right. People go off the deep end all the time. There is no magic way to tell if your future spouse is going to tear your heart out. Sure there might be signs that a person might be a risk and you should always take those signs into consideration, but you never really know. We all take risks and so once again this cements my thought. You are not an island and one of you, you or your spouse, can make a choice that affects a lot of people.

Lucky for us not every single choice we make is going to cause catastrophic result and sometimes we actually make good choices. (Yeah for us!)

So just remember when the time comes for you to make a life altering decision you are not an island because if you don't and you keep making stupid decisions you might find yourself alone on a deserted one.

Saving The Planet

I love hypocrites. They make me smile on a continual basis.  One of my favorite hypocrites would have to be Richard . He is a fountain of abundant wisdom and loves to share that wisdom, but never follow it.One of my favorite words of wisdom he has recently share with one of his children was this...

Richard to his son, "I don't believe in  your church anymore because they don't do anything to save the planet. You have to save the planet in order to be a good person and your church doesn't do anything that helps the planet."

Later that day my nephew asked my sister why the church doesn't do anything to save the planet. Her response was to go online and show him the thousands of things their church does to help the planet. After this she asked her son how he felt about what his Dad said and he said, "Yeah I didn't think he was telling the truth because Dad has a hard time telling the truth, even about stupid stuff."

Then my sister asked my nephew, "What does your Dad do to help the planet?"

My nephew thought long and hard about this before he answered with, "Not a lot I guess, but he doesn't flush the toilet when he pees so he can save water." 

Good one, Richard. Way to help the planet by being lazy...you moron.

Breaking Point

So it's been a bit since I mentioned Richard and his ridiculous shenanigans so here it goes.

Richard has been raised with the belief in God his whole life. He married my sister under these beliefs, beliefs my sister holds dear to her heart. He knew this when they married. He knew that she had lived her life with a love of God and  he made a commitment to continue to live these beliefs. He promised he felt the same way and that they would raise their children with these beliefs as well.

After ten years of marriage Richard decided he no longer believed in God and my sister was heart broken. She cried and asked why? She asked if they could go to counseling or if he needed to speak to someone in their faith about it. He refused and told her if she wanted a divorce he wouldn't fight her on it and would allow her to keep the children and he would continue to provide for them.

She told him no that she wanted to stayed married and see if they could work things out. He was open to this at first, but after months of trying he still was struggling. He started to try and persuade my sister that God did not exist and that she was stupid to believe he did.

This is were my sister put her foot down. She told him that if they were going to make things work he would have to keep his beliefs to himself. He was not to speak to the children about God, period. If he didn't believe that was up to him, but they had agreed to raise their children a certain way and she wasn't going to change that. He agreed, but of course being the stupid man that he is couldn't help himself. He had to prove to her that he was right and continued to attack her with his atheist beliefs.

Finally my sister finally gave him an ultimatum. If he wanted to stay married he would have to stop or she would have to leave and if he truly loved her he would let her live the life they had agreed upon when they married. She promised not to speak to him about God if he would do the same for her and the children.

You know what his answer was? That he didn't love her anymore and that she and the children made him unhappy. My sister sat in shock for several moments then got up and left the room. She packed up her and the children's things and left.
 
Four days later Richard called and said he was wrong and that he was feeling confused, but my sister said she was done. If he wanted his freedom he had it.

So what would  you do? Would you break up your marriage over your religious beliefs? I realize in my sister's case this was not the only reason for not going back, but think about it. What would your breaking point be?


 

Why is my life so hard?

Have you ever caught yourself saying this? I have to admit I am guilty of an occasional whine fest. I think it's healthy to whine once in a while about things that push you. So next time you feel bad about your life make sure you whine out loud. That's right scream it to the mountain tops. Go do it right now. I'll wait.

So did you get it all out? Feeling any better. No?

Then try remembering this...

Someone you know is also suffering. They might have a child that is ill. They might have lost someone close to them. They might be getting a divorce. They might be sending a loved one to a war zone. They might waiting for a child they themselves cannot conceive.

So next time you feel down about life reach out and try and lift another who is also struggling...

Unless that person is a jerk. If that's the case you can go ahead and ignore their pain because they probably deserve it.

Have a nice day :)

Top Five Reasons

Here are the top ten reason's people get divorced. They say just one can doom a marriage. Lets see how Richard scores on this test.

1. Infidelity
Yep

2. Communication breakdown
Not sure Richard can spell "communication" let alone knows how it works.

3. Physical, psychological, or emotional abuse
Two out of three, but I'm sure if she waits around we might get lucky!

4. Financial issues
I think we have already covered the fact that Richard has issues with money.

5. Boredom
I think he's boring and obnoxious, rude, stupid, disgusting...

EPIC FAIL!

 And this was just the short test. I would hate to see how he scores on the long version. 

My New Saying

Sometimes when life gets hard we tend to want to blame other people. So and so didn't follow through so now my life is hard. I couldn't get this done because so and so didn't do their part.  So and So took a knife to six of my tires and got away with it. Any of this sounding familiar?

The last several weeks have brought some hardships for me. None of them alone would have caused much of an issue, but with each hardship hitting one right after another I've really had to sit down and think about life. I've ponder why bad things happen to good people and why when people do what they should they don't seem to get the rewards they deserve.

Why is this?

After asking myself this I think I've come up with an answer and that answer is this "You're Not Special".

Now don't get me wrong. We are all individuals and all have things about us that are unique, but we aren't special when it comes to the ups and downs of life. We are all going to have to face hardships in our lives. We are all going to have bad things happen to us even when we don't feel we deserve it. Life is hard and there isn't a promise that if we are extra nice that we won't have to face our own trials in life.

So the next time you are feeling picked on and you don't think you deserve all the things that are happening to you remember this, "You're Not Special". It will save you a lot of heartache knowing that you're not the only one suffering out in the world. We all get our fair share of disappointments and trials.