Climbing mountains

My patients really amaze me sometimes. People my age tend to "brush off" older people, but sometimes I enjoy conversations with 50-somethings more than with people my own age. They are older, and wiser. If you sat down with a stranger old enough to be your grandparent and had a conversation about life, I'm positive that you'd be amazed at what you'd learn. That happened to me on a plane once. An unlikely conversation thousands of feet in the air...I'm still not sure if the person who sat next to me was just a regular old man or an angel.

It's no secret that life has been challenging for me lately, and I've spent many nights praying for something...anything...to help. After last week, I am confident that my prayers were not only heard, but answered. And it's amazing how God works sometimes. Who would've thought that healing and comfort would come through conversations with my patients? I found myself sitting in my office more than once last week with tears in my eyes, so touched by the words I had just heard. I'll leave the deatils out. Way too much to type in a blog. There are, however, a couple of quotes that stick out in my mind, and I'll share those.

"I didn't know what a right choice was."

"I was so drawn to the bad guys. I could've been standing in a room with 1,000 men, with 999 of them being great guys, and I would be drawn to the one bad guy like a magnet."

Here in the past few days, some confusing things have come up. Here lately, it seems as if I'm having to make major back-to-back decisions that will have a serious impact on my life. I can't catch a mental or emotional break. I am my own therpaist, talking myself through the hurtful situations, giving myself advice that I would give others. I honestly feel like I've held up pretty well, considering. I know this storm will soon pass, but I'm trying to not look so hard for the blue skies, because I know that the storms are where you grow and learn. Character is built during times like these, and you come out on the other side a better person. It's not about reaching the mountaintop; it's about every step you stuggled to take on the way up. Achieving your goal doesn't define you. Overcoming all those little struggles in the process does. So I'm trying to really soak in all the learned lessons, and boy has there been a lot of them lately. There are still some choices on the horizion that will have to be made soon, and I'm just praying I make the right ones. Sometimes the saddest and hardest thing you have to do is to eliminate someone from your life who you truly cared about. But when the alternative is letting yourself being taken advantage of time after time, in the end you're only hurting yourself. One famous quote plays over and over in my mind..."God never said life would be easy. He only promised it would be worth it." And one more..." For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."- Romans 8:18

So here I go. Another step towards the top with everything I got. I've been promised that it will be worth it, and I believe it.