LIFE

Many times in life we forget whom we are as individuals. We tend to see ourselves as "just one of the crowd". Do you know that you are special? Do you truly understand that there is no one in this world quite like you?

In life, a lot of us have been taught that we're nothing. Other times, we're told that we have to do things a certain way to be accepted. At one point in my life, I was told that "if you would have been born a boy, your father and I would still be married. Nothing is further from the truth then to be told this lie. And yet, for years, I believed that I was a huge disappointment to my mother. I thought through my entire childhood, and many years of my adult life, that I was the cause of my mother's misery. I couldn't have been further from the truth. You see, I was born a girl for a reason. I was placed in my family because this is the family I was meant to be in. I have been wrong about many things.

Each and every one of us have value. All of us have been born into a family, a place, and a time where we are needed most. No one, and I mean no one in all the universe, has the unique qualities that you have. No one has had the exact same experiences, thoughts or feelings that you have. And no one can touch the lives of those we come across in life quite the same way that you can. We are all here for a divine purpose. It doesn't matter what you've been taught in the past, I am here to tell you, you are loved, you are precious, and you can be a blessing to everyone you meet. That, however, is a choice you have to make. No one can make that choice for you. It is yours and yours alone.

Before I go any further, I will tell you a little bit about my life. As a child, I was badly abused. I was molested by a family member (not my dad). My adoptive father beat me and my siblings while our mother would sit back and watch. She would tell us that we "deserved it". I went to school more then once and couldn't sit down at my desk without crossing one leg under the other because our father had beat me so hard that I couldn't sit right, the pain was so bad. Bruises and welts would effect my ability to function for days. All the while, our mother would be "happy" because we didn't "mess up again", we were "behaving" and it was because of that beating. In reality, we were scared to death. Many times we were made to stand in a corner on one leg for what was originally supposed to be for 15 minutes, and almost always turned into an hour. Can you imagine being made to do this, without touching the walls? It was not possible, which is why we inevitably ended up being made to stand there longer. I remember one time when I started to black out and fell against the wall. Doing so brought me back to the present and I remember begging God to make sure our dad or mom didn't see it because I feared retribution. I also remember making an oath to never, ever, treat my own children like we were treated. And I never did.

All of this abuse as a child led me to having no confidence in myself as an adult. When I met the man who later became my first husband, I felt "lucky" that any man would want anything to do with me. After all, I was this terrible person who wasn't a boy at birth and failed to be good all the time. I believed I had this horrible flaw that made me unworthy of a better life then the one I had in this marriage that grew to be even more abusive then the life I had grown up in.

Do you understand where I'm going with telling you this? I am telling you this very brief synopsis of my life to show you that no matter what we have gone through, we do deserve to be treated with love and respect. And if we're not living with love and respect, there is a way out. You, no matter how you "feel", are awesome.

Remember how I said before that no one can be the person that you were created to be? Well, it's the truth. Let's say, for example that you and I know many of the same people. Let's say we hang with the same crowds all the time, we go everywhere together. Do you realize that you still know people that I may never meet? Do you realize that we each have a choice as to whether we make the encounters we have in life to be good one's or bad?

I went through many, many years of abuse that was violent beyond some people's imagination. Did I want my life to be like it was? No, I didn't. However, I didn't realize back then that I had the choice as to whether it continued or I decided to turn it all around and be the person I am today. At a critical point in my life, I chose to walk away from the violence I was living in. To be frank with you, I was terrified. I had no idea whether I could change things. I had no self-esteem. I had been told my entire life how unworthy I was to have anything good, ever.

I was in my 30's when I finally took a huge step of faith and went to college. I say it was a "huge step of faith" because I had also been told all my life that I was stupid. When we're told anything that belittles us enough times in our lives, we tend to believe the lie. However, at the end of my first grading period, I was happy to learn that I was, indeed, smart. I not only passed that grading period with A's, I also was on the Dean's List. Everything in me screamed for me to go and shove that certificate of honor in my mothers face and let her know I wasn't stupid like she told me I was. The only reason I didn't do that was because she was my mother. No matter what she had put me through, I was raised to "respect my elders".

I want you to know that respect is not something we are required to give to someone who doesn't deserve it, even if it's a family member. Are we to love them? Absolutely. If we can't find it in ourselves to love that person, we allow God to love them through us. That is not easy, either if we've never been taught how to do it.

I am not saying we will "like" everyone we meet in life. That's not even remotely possible. However, how we treat the people around us, whether it's someone we live with, work with or meet for the very first time, we should treat that person the way we would like them to treat us. We cannot expect other people to love and respect us if we don't first love and respect ourselves. Easier said then done? Yes, when we've known nothing but abuse in our lives. But it's not impossible.

As individuals, we have choices we make every day of our life's. Let's say, for example, that you work with a person who will go out of their way to make certain you know that they think you're awful for some unknown reason. That person may buy coffee for everyone on your team of co-workers, except for you, and they make sure you know they did it. This will make someone with no self-worth feel even lower then they already do.

Instead of feeling slighted and giving in to the urge to talk bad about that person (or beat them up), this is an opportunity to love them anyway. It's possible that this person is going through many things in their private life that you know nothing about, but they can't show their contempt in their normal environment so they chose you to lash out at. It's possible that this person picked up on the fact that your low self-esteem and it reminds them of themselves so that made you an easy target.

In all of life's experiences, we each have a choice about how react. Are we going to show the person who has shown you no respect to continue to treat you bad by doing to them what they are doing to you? No, the better choice is to take the time to learn to love and respect ourselves. In doing so, we not only get our self worth back, we also gain the ability to respond to anyone who disrespects us with a kind heart and understand that they need someone to show them that they, too, are worthy of goodness in their lives.

We are supposed to be a light in the world of darkness. There are a lot of evil people in our world. Some will never learn to accept the fact that they have the ability to have a better life, because they are content to stay in their own misery. That is not on us, it's their life choice. Still, there are many people who simply need one person to be kind to them for them to realize they actually are lovable.

I can't tell you how to live your life, nor would I even want to. But I can choose to be a light in this world of darkness and do so gratefully. I can choose to be that person who smiles at a stranger or hugs a friend who simply needs to cry it out so they can think for themselves and heal. I can be that person who listens, but doesn't pass judgement, because I've been there, in similar situations, and I understand their pain. Can I fix it? Maybe not. But I can choose to be a lot less judgmental of others. I can choose to be the kind of person I would want to meet. I can be the mother who loves her children and teaches them how to treat others. I can be the wife who loves her husband and allows him to be my "partner" in life, and still allow him to be an individual. I can also be that lady who knows how I want to be treated, and therefore treat other's in that manner.

Life really is all about choices. Yes, there are some things we have no control over. But we do have control over how much we respect ourselves. We do have the ability to not allow anyone to disrespect us, and simply walk away from anyone who does not give us the respect we deserve. We also have the choice to go out and truly live our own lives, and be all that we were created to be.

God bless you, dear friends. Know that you are worthy of goodness and love. Anyone who tells you differently does not deserve to be in the circle of your friends. And you can walk away.