Monday, September 21, 2009

Rising above your circumstances

I would imagine that many of us grew up in circumstances that were not always positive or the best for us. I always wondered why certain things were a certain way in our home and I also remember what my mom said to me when I would question why certain things were done certain ways in our home ... " that's just the way things are Lynn", then I would proceed with the all too famous line of " but why?" No matter how well my mom explained it, it didn't make sense to me and as a little girl, I wish that I had a voice ....so that I could explain how I thought things should be. But at last, I was just a girl and so I didn't have much leverage. I remember distinctly as a teenager thinking to myself often... that someday when I get married, things were going to be different in my home. I was going to try and change the things that upset me so much and ...that became a driving force for me throughout my dating years.

When I read this story it made me think of how grateful I was that I never believed it always had to be this way and that I couldn't change things. I truly expected my home would be different and it is. I am so grateful for that little "POT STIRRER" attitude that I had (even though I know it worried my mom). I am grateful for a knowledge that I am a child of God and that I didn't have to settle for anything less (although I did come very close to doing that a few times). I am grateful to be able to have kids who believe that they can be anything they want to be. I am so proud of them and their goals, determination and attitudes, it was definitely more positive than I had. Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of good things in our home and my parents are the ones that gave me that knowledge of who I was, but like any home not everything was perfect.

So hopefully you will read this story and remember to take time out to see your potential and not go your whole life... not living up to that potential! It is vital to remember who we are!  Thanks to so many of you, who have reminded me of my value and importance during the  many times throughout my life when I couldn't remember it for myself!

 

Song of the Bird

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eagle hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet in the air.

Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. it glided in graceful majesty among powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked. "That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth-we're chickens." So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.  ~ Anthony DeMello

"To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness."   ~ John Dewey

"Men only take their needs into consideration, never their abilities." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

"Work while you have light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you."                    ~ Henri Frederick Amiel

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