Friday, September 20, 2013

Thankfulness through adversity


Did you notice that beautiful full, harvest moon last evening?  Just incredible!  My camera really doesn't do it justice, but I wanted to remember how truly spectacular it was.  Another sign of fall...


Those crazy nasturtiums threatening to overtake house and hearth again this year!  If you're ever wondering where to plant these hardy flowers, I'd suggest the Western facing and hot side of your garden.  As you can see, they thrive there.


I've been doing more thinking about evolving lately, seems to be my theme of this past week.  None of us enjoy adversity, right?  But we're told to be thankful for all things, even those times in life that cause us to feel pain.  I try to see adversity (growing pains) as a chance to learn from the experience, be grateful that we're probably going to become a stronger, possibly even a better person because of having survived the situation. There's probably a good reason for that old saying that, "whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger".  I believe it's true.


Suffering through adversity, trials in life, emotional pain, whatever you choose to call them, undoubtedly molds us into more emphatic people as well.  It allows us to feel other people's pain, and we're better able to offer comfort, advice, understanding, when we've experienced similar experiences in our own lives.  We learn compassion by feeling the pain firsthand.  We evolve into a more wise and well-rounded person with more tolerance of pain when we recognize it in others.

I also believe that by contrast, the sweetness in life becomes all the sweeter because we've been down in the valleys.  If all our days were filled with nothing but good, that would become rather mundane, and human nature would have us take everything for granted.  If we were in a perfect world, I don't believe we would take anything for granted, we'd live in a continual state of gratitude...but, we don't live in a perfect world.  Our world is full of emotional pain, physical pain, stress, sin, anger and so many other descriptions of unhappiness that we have plenty of opportunities to learn from our trials.


These adversities also give us need of a comforter.  We all need to have comfort, guidance, understanding and love to survive this merry-go-round we call life.  *sigh*

Sometimes it can feel overwhelming...sometimes we offer help and understanding to others when our days are going alright.  We all grow stronger by reaching out and comforting one another.

Sometimes we just need to be still and know that everything's gonna work out in time...learn to ride out the storms of life and be thankful each and every day for so many blessings that we tend to overlook and take for granted.  All those little things that make life so special...and good.

Have a great weekend everybody!

It's supposed to be a wet one around here, so we're battening down the hatches, hubby got the grass mowed and the pool boxed up for the season (how sad!), and we'll take things as they come.  Just maybe, I'll get to see my rain chain in action.  :)

Blessings,
Lorie @ Cingspots

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful and so true

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...


I love this post, you're spot on :-)

Carolynn Anctil said...

I don't ever want to go through some of the stuff I've gone through again - ever. Yet, I'm grateful for all the good that has arisen out of those experiences. It's those times of crisis and struggle that help to shape us and to make us whole.

Blessings,
Carolynn

greymare said...

I really needed this today. Going through a bit of a situation with my sister and we talked today to try and mend things and after reading your post really helped me to understand. She and I are good now and yes we all need some adversity in our lives to make us better people. Thnaks

aurora said...

Nice thought provoking post. I've never seen a rain chain in action. Enjoy!

Sherry Sikstrom said...

very good advice

panthercreekcottage said...

Beutiful post and very timely for me Miss Lorie. Thanks for the much needed empathy, prayers, and friendship girlfriend. Oh, I'm loving the soft brown eyed jersey sister in your "Rhythms of Life". A knowing look on that gal!

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...

absolutely you can share... to answer your question on my blog today :-) I am not able to reply to your comment, as you have your e-mail blocked, or something like that.