A Little Insight... Finding Good in Life's Trials

If you would have asked me two weeks ago to describe my life, I would have told you it is fairly normal.  We have a dog, a healthy daughter, good jobs and a home we love.  None of this has changed, except for the fact that the past couple of weeks have been nothing but normal.  Better words to describe my life would be tired, worried, and exhausted. 

Two weeks ago my husband ruptured his Achilles tendon while playing basketball with friends.  Until two days ago his injury required him to be completely flat in bed, leaving me to take care of him and my family all alone.  Although I spent the majority of those two weeks feeling bad for myself, I recently discovered that even though this has been a trying time, I wouldn’t trade it.  This has been a humbling experience and I feel like we have learned some very valuable lessons as a family.  Here are a few things I learned….

1.       Complaining doesn’t make you feel better.  It only makes you feel bad for yourself and it makes you an awful person to be around.

2.       We are so lucky to be healthy the majority of the time. 

3.       Modern medicine is amazing.

4.       Sometimes, we can’t do everything on our own.  It is okay to let people help.

5.       Single parents are super heroes.

Here’s a poem a friend shared with me about life’s up’s and down’s.  Hope you like it.

Good Timber by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always go its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

 

The man who never had to toil

To gain and farm his patch of soil,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

 

Good timber does not grow with ease;

The stronger the wind, the stronger the trees;

The farther the sky, the greater the length;

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, by rain and snow,

In trees and men good timbers grow.

 

Where thickest lies the forest growth,

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold counsel with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.

{Read all posts by Courtnie}