Life is not always fair

Life deals more rigorously with some than others.

-- Lewis F. Presnall

How often do we think about a friend, He sure is lucky! And probably just as often we say to ourselves, Why did that happen to me? It's not fair!

The truth is, life isn't always fair. We don't all get the same experiences, the same lessons. But we each learn what we need to learn in order to fulfill our destiny.

We have to learn to trust.

Maybe a bike gets stolen or a friend moves away. It's not easy to accept such things as these, but we must all learn to understand and accept losses in our lives.

Perhaps we fail a test.

The lesson we learn from this may be to study harder or to consider a different course of study in school. There are always reasons for why things happen, but we don't have to know them.

We are often so busy trying to control the outcome of the happenings in our daily lives, so intent on projecting our tomorrows, that we let life slip by.

Life is today. This is all we have for sure -- the moments in our lives we cannot hold.

Sometimes it feels as if those moments are beyond time and place, gifts from God to receive and give up at the same time.

Like a dragonfly that lights on our hand and will either be crushed or will fly away if we try to close our fingers over it.

Life is a series of things to let go of -- our friends and loved ones, our children as they grow, our dreams, or our youth.

Only we ourselves, our inner selves, are a constant to be found and learned about every day, in the present moment.

Pick Something Up

Whenever you fall, pick something up. -- Oswald Avery

There was once a very active boy who fell and broke his leg. He could run again in the spring, the doctors said, but only if he stayed in bed for an entire month and kept his leg still.

At first the boy fought the rule, but he found that the more he thought about things he couldn't do, the more tired and angry he felt.

His parents put in a phone by his bed and friends called every day. He'd never much liked talking on the phone, but he felt better when they called.

He wrote letters and got replies, and was surprised at what fun it was. Usually, he didn't have time to write letters.

He learned to play chess and began to enjoy reading.

His days were slower and quieter than he'd been used to, but he learned a month really isn't a very long time.

When spring came, he was running again, a little more joyfully than before.

When we can learn to accept our troubles, we find, like the boy, that they are just packages in which new growth and discoveries are wrapped.

For no actual process happens twice;

only we meet the same sort of occasion again.

-- Suzanne K. Langer

Today is not going to be like yesterday. Nor will it resemble tomorrow.

Each day is special and promises us many new ideas -- perhaps the chance to make a friend, or to learn something interesting from a teacher or a book.

Some activities today will be familiar, just like playing a game for the second, third, or tenth time is familiar.

And yet, the way each player moves the pieces around the board will be different.

The excitement about today is that it is full of surprises.

Every thing we do, every conversation we have, will not be repeated in just the same way again, and this reminds us how special each of us is.

Acceptance

When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation -- some fact of my life -- unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.

Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God's world by mistake...Unless I accept life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy.

I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,

other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed

that during the low periods of my life,

when I was suffering from

anguish, sorrow or defeat,

I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,

"You promised me Lord,

that if I followed you,

you would walk with me always.

But I have noticed that during

the most trying periods of my life

there have only been one

set of footprints in the sand.

Why, when I needed you most,

you have not been there for me?"

The Lord replied,

"The times when you have

seen only one set of footprints,

is when I carried you."

Mary Stevenson