Grateful

By Lois Cheney

FOREVER GRATEFUL

I am enormously grateful for all the events of my life: past, present and future! I am thankful for every person, every situation, every roadblock as well as every win. The twists and turns of my life deserve my unending thanks.

Why would I love it all? Why would I appreciate the rough spots as well as the high flying successes? Why would I praise the slaps of life as well as the kisses?

Was my life in the past and is my life in the present so easy, so enjoyable, that I am able to simply overlook anything unpleasant? Could it be that everything I tried turned out exactly as I planned? Are those the reasons perhaps I might be looking forward to the future knowing it will be a “breeze”, an easy “walk in the park”? Hardly!

I am quite sure that the future will hold challenges and as many ups and downs for my path as any human can expect. I certainly realize that my future will have problems as well as solutions. So why would I be so completely thankful for all of it?

My not so perfect life started with my father abandoning mother and me when I was a little over a year old. Not exactly a Stellar beginning. I was raised by an elderly grandmother and a cold and very unemotional mother, who worked most of the time. As a child I felt completely abandoned and unloved.

My self-image along with my ability to love myself was severely stunted. As a result I was incapable of loving or even acknowledging others. In those early years as a child I spent most of the time looking down at my feet and hardly ever smiling.

As I look back at my childhood, what a study in human relations it was! I can smile about it because undeniably it gave me a foundation for the work I do today. I am able to understand so much of the “acting out” some of us experience as adults. Many of our attitudes about life originate in our inability to love and accept ourselves. When we are unable to love and value ourselves, offering open hearted love to others is not possible.

Given my background it is not surprising that, still looking for love, I married young, barely out of school. Within a couple of years my two children were born. I continued to work in an office. With any free time I could find I pursued my spiritual growth with books, classes and meditation. Unfortunately my husband was not interested in such matters. That fact was the source of much contention and resentment. It was not an ideal life for several unhappy years.