Count Your Many Blessings

                                                          Everyday is a brand new day,
                                                            everyday is a journey.



Earth gets its price for what it gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking;
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking.

--James Russell Lowell.

I wish I could begin today's post full of positivity, but truth be told, the week has been extremely difficult. This is nothing new in my life. In fact, this is the same re-occurring trigger that haunts me from time to time. I can place a band-aid on it, but it's just that a band-aid that eventually falls off without healing the wound. I don't know how to heal this, but I do know I need to ask the Almighty for help. I have locked myself away this weekend, trying desperately to rejuvenate the spirit. 

This month, specifically May 25, I have celebrated 11 years of being diagnosed and living with stage 3 ovarian cancer. During these years, my main goal has been to deepen or begin relationships with all the people in my life. I wish I could say that it has been very easy to do so, because it hasn't. The reasons why vary from the person to person. Some are way too difficult and make it hard to love them. Others don't have the same desire as I do. There are those who harbor past issues and cannot forgive nor let go. 

These have been my struggles and I have written about them many times. It seems that all of you also have these same struggles as you've written back to me with your own stories. I can't help, but wonder why, because it wasn't always like this. My mom's generation held onto long term relationships, but she is also a product of World War Two. She was born during that time, a time that shook the very foundation of what life was all about. People in return valued marriage, family and friendships a great deal more, because of what happened in that era. 

What is going on in the world now is me, myself and I. Nothing else seems to matter to people anymore. Not relationships, not partnerships, not even a relationship with God. People don't want to work out problems anymore, they just divorce you. Couples divorce themselves, parents divorce their children and friends divorce each other. It's so much easier to just cut off the relationship than it is to sweat out the problem. That would mean we would have to take a deep look at ourselves and we don't want to do that. 

I cannot change what is going on out in the world, but I can change how that world affects me. I cannot have anymore weeks like that, I refuse to have them. I'm working on myself with a partner and His name is Jesus. I will count the many blessings I have experienced and will continue to do so. Life is good. Life is what I make it. My life is with Jesus. 

Have a blessed day everyone.