It's one December still, but in my neck of the woods, I haven't seen the ground for weeks. I haven't felt warm in far too long. And, I sigh, February, that miserable month, isn't too far away.
Not to mention the laundry list of worries and concerns and stressors I've got. You too. You probably have your own mid-winters you are dreading.
Throughout life we find ourselves subjected to what Shakespeare called "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." We have our ups and our downs, our hills and our valleys, our celebrations and our sorrows. What I didn't know as a younger person is that the valleys were necessary in order for the hills to have any meaning.
I'm a little older now, and one advantage to having grown older is the added wisdom and increased awareness which has come to me. So let me tell you what I've noticed through the years. Not nearly the number of things that I thought would hurt me-and perhaps damage me forever-have done any such thing. In fact, a startling number of these "bad things" have turned out, in the end, to have been the greatest gifts.
Perhaps more importantly, I've come to see clearly that without any "downs" at all in my life, the "ups" would mean nothing. It is Contrast that creates the Context within which anything at all can be known Experientially.
Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the extraordinary thinker, scientist and writer (quoted, coincidentally, in the writing just above this) has put it this way: Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms, you would never see the beauty of their carvings.
I just wanted to pass on that wisdom today, as we experience this fourth month of our no-longer-so-new year. If Life is presenting you with showers right now, just know, just trust, that there will be flowers. Nothing happens to us by chance, there are no accidents, and there is no such thing as coincidence. Everything proceeds in God's Universe in perfect order.
Therefore, thank God for everything that is occurring, no matter what it is.
