Gifts

So, now that we are swimming in the holiday season, I realize it is a time to pause and reflect.  With the year coming to a close, I am able to take notice of all the events, opportunities, sadness, happiness, successes, and failures that have made their way into my life.

I can’t sum up a year as “bad”.  Some of the greatest gifts that I receive are hidden under a cloak of difficulties.  Yes, there was lose of a loved one, challenges with raising a young man with Down syndrome, scary medical issues, transitions for both of my boys, challenges caring for my elderly mother, just to name a few, but then I unwrap the present and I look inside.  The gifts that those experiences give me outweigh any anxiety that I may have felt.

I realize that my complaints or annoyances over what I consider difficult, pale in comparison to what others deal with at any given time.    I am mindful that I am blessed.  I am mindful that I am loved.  Most of all, I mindful that goodness and light are the products of walking through the shadows of ones plight.