People come and go through your life and sometimes they become great friends, some become family and others move on. Life is not always simple but the people you surround yourself with are the people that you become like and you emulate whether you want to or not.
I have not always been the person that I am now. No one starts out as the person they become because we all have to evolve and over come obstacles in our lives. I consider myself to be a good person. I am fun to be around or so I am told. I love people and I enjoy others company. I like to give more than to receive and I live to make others around me happy.
I have come a long way from where I was 10 years ago. I am not even sure I would have liked me then if I had met myself now. But like I said we all evolve and overcome.
I have finally learned to like myself in the past couple of years. I honestly think that is where a person must start to learn how to become the person he/she wants to be. It has not been easy to learn to like myself. I have never been as confident or as outgoing as I think now that I should have been. But I know now that it doesn't take beauty or smarts or money to make you who you are. It takes love of life and being happy where you are and with what you have.
When I was growing up my parents insisted that my sister and I were at church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday night. Although I rebelled and did not think that this was very important at the time I feel like I finally know and understand why my parents wanted my sister and I at church every week. It wasn't just to learn the "Golden Rule" or to learn about all of the books of the Bible or to hear sermons about Jesus walking on Water, although these are very important lessons, it was the influences of the people that we went to church with. It was the teachers, the elders, the deacons, the preacher, and all of the Godly people that helped to guide us. And, now, looking back it was not a lesson that was taught in a classroom or from a pulpit it was just watching the way the members of our church treated each other and how they lived their lives. I know now that all of the people that I came into contact with while I was growing up in the church have had definite impacts on how I now want to live my life and how I want to treat others.
I may never become the President of the United States or a multimillionaire but I know that I will leave a mark on someone's life because of the lessons I have learned and because of the obstacles I have overcome. I know God has a plan for me and I am now on a mission to do whatever he has planned. Someone once told me that when you tell God your plans He laughs because He has your true plan and you must listen and follow him in order to find the path He wants you to take.
So I have started on a journey to find the path that God wants me to follow and I hope to share my lessons and my obstacles with you and I pray that my journey might help you. Whether through inspiration or just a good laugh I hope you will join me and see where my path leads.

Daddy
4/25/2012 09:22:18 pm

This is beautiful writing--just like you!!!!!

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Mary-Nancy Smith
4/26/2012 02:31:23 am

Thank you so very much Daddy!

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AJ Lape
6/17/2012 05:00:50 am

Yes, God has a plan for you, Mary-Nancy! I can't tell you how much I believe that, and that God has placed us in one another's lives. You mentioned that you had battled health issues--that is a subject that I, too, can relate to. I have epilepsy, that horrible affliction that landed people in mental hospitals centuries ago, the same affliction that convinced some in the organized Church that you were possessed by demons. Now, that I know my type, I had it as a child and it just grew worse in adulthood. Unfortunately, I was misdiagnosed for four years which were some of the darkest times of my life. I felt God didn't hear me, didn't like me, I wasn't one of his favorites. My father is a pastor and so was my grandmother. I felt all of the things my parents told me about God weren't true. I experienced public humiliation and degradations so horrible that they are even difficult to write about. Thank God, I had a husband that didn't mind to clean up after his wife. That happened in my 20's and before you knew it, I'd lost close to a decade of my life...and I had big plans. Plans where I was going to make a difference in the world, and I didn't get to do any of them. My heart was broken. It's like my body just fell apart. Around the same time, I found out why I was so allergic to things. It seems I not only was gifted with epilepsy but with a rare disorder that gives your body too many mast cells--mast cells cause allergic reactions. I almost died once after an allergy shot, and I remembering looking to the sky and saying, "God if you'd just tell me what I did wrong, I'd fix it. I swear, I'd fix it." God didn't talk to me for four years. One day, I opened the Bible and turned to the verse, "I am the Lord, they God. Is there anything too hard for me?" I answered back, "No, God, there isn't." I then had to accept that God could heal me...if He wanted to. I had to accept what His Will was but at the same time, believe He could do it. I gradually got stronger when my epilepsy was diagnosed then I had my girls and before you knew it, 20 years had gone by from my college graduation and I still felt so unsuccessful. On another stroke of bad luck I had nine different surgeries in the course of three years for various ailments. Stress can do a number on your body, and I got caught in this vicious cycle that I couldn't turn off. The last seizure I had left nonstop ringing in my left ear that at times makes me want to ram my head through the wall. I currently take acupuncture treatments that help a little. But I find if I can laugh then sometimes the bad days are livable. Keep writing, Mary. Write about what you know. God has given you a unique voice, so use it and allow Him to show you where He wants to take you. So glad He has led us to one another, because I totally believe that is what happened.

Love you even though I've never physically met you,
AJ Lape

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