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It struck me as we walked that this is how our lives go as well. We encounter changes … challenges to our status quo, threats to our dreams … and we have little choice but to address them, whether that means fighting or adapting. (Or denying. But that’s a whole other story.)
And what happens when we wrestle—whether with disappointment, strife or the unexpected? We adapt. We change. A new type of beauty emerges: It might look like perspective. Or a wry sense of humor. A generous heart. A sense of optimism. A graceful acceptance.
Since the turn of the year, I’ve been teaching and coaching writing online, helping people identify their own stories, draw them out of their heads and put them into words. Many of these stories involve a challenge of some sort, and in sharing them, their writers reveal the inner beauty they have evolved in response to these experiences.
This past year has brought challenge upon challenge. Some of these trials have threatened our lives. Others have tested our endurance. New situations are changing our beliefs, our understandings of the world around us, our hearts and our appearances (hello, gray hair!).
But I don’t believe these hardships are only bringing trouble. They also are prompting us to adapt and to grow. I choose to believe they are guiding us toward a more beautiful version of ourselves, as individuals and as a society, inspiring in us greater capacities for love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (apart from dark chocolate consumption).*
So those are my thoughts, this Valentine's Day Eve. Next newsletter I’ll try to get around to sharing my obsession with masala chai and the quick and easy recipe I make and savor every morning!
Take good care,
Sarah
*Galatians 5:22-23 ... with apologies for the chocolate aside!
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