Friday November 4, 2016

The saddest thing is to be a minute to someone, when you've made them your eternity. And it happens all the time. You're all-in with committment for a certain someone who lets you down. It's exhausting and unfair. May you be blessed with balance in a relationship that is equal; one where you are appreciated. Know your own worth. Value it. Go out and level your relational playing field.

“When I was 10, we were taken away from our parents through [the Kansas Department for Children and Families] and put in the foster-care system,” Stiers said. It was her grandmother who came and brought all of them back to her Independence, Mo., home, eventually adopting them in 2013.

“She kind of saved us from being split up into five different foster homes,” Stiers said. “She took us in and taught us everything. One day she didn’t have any kids, and the next day she had five.”

It wasn’t easy at first. Nana was “very old school” and raised the siblings with “a very black-and-white, no-gray-area kind of strictness,” Stiers recalled. She was a stickler for firm handshakes, having impeccable manners and treating others with respect — all while “dealing with the craziness of my parents,” Stiers said, who went in and out of the children’s lives...READ MORE

"I am writing to lend you support. Five years ago my life turned totally upside down. I started feeling very sick physically. I had to give up the house I was leasing and move "home" to the house I grew up in which my x-husband owns due to our divorce. Thankfully he took me in.

During this time I have had to give up my car, my independence and most of all my feelings of self worth. I felt as if I had fallen down the rabbit hole; the one with no way out. I lost everything!

But I knew there had to be a reason I was in this situation so I began a spiritual journey to find my way back. Eventually I learned how to meditate and started praying again. Along the way I was introduced to journaling gratitude.

What? Finding gratitude in this seemingly hopeless situation?!! What was there to be grateful about having no income, no car, no place to live?

Slowly I began to find reasons to be grateful. Like waking up the next day, having food, a bed, a bedroom, my dog, etc. The little things that we forget about. Soon instead of just listing my gratitude items, I began to write in my journal.

I even realized that I also needed to be grateful for the negatives because in doing so I am beginning to achieve a semblance of balance to my situation. Has my situation changed? Not really. I have broken down crying many times, have felt suicidal, and have yelled at God (a lot!).

But by honestly feeling grateful for both the positives and the negatives of my situation I think I am becoming a much stronger, spiritual person who is learning a whole lot of life lessons, again.

I know this is long but I wanted to share with you how one person is learning to find a way through the darkness of pain and sorrow. I pray that you will find hope from my story."

Gratefully, Cecilia