What I know for sure...

....is that I'm grateful for the place I'm in right now. After years of minimal triumphs, bump after bump, fears consuming my every thought, why before why not...I can finally breathe some sighs of relief.

Over the past couple of days I've been confronted with the stories of the people in my life that I love and care about. Most of them are stories about challenging and trying times for them. Their stories are not only teaching me the power of giving, giving of support, love, encouragement, it's teaching me the power of being thankful for those same moments that I've gone through before. Yet, because I got through I am now able to live and enjoy what has come from it, the ability to give strength to those that are standing knee deep in their sorrows, pains, fears, uncertainties and are having trouble standing on their own.

God has a way of taking us through the hardships in life in order to teach us the beauty of being grateful for the goodships. Though it may not seem that way now, he has a plan for us all. It may not be the life we want, the life we think we should have, but nonetheless it's the life that only we can live. We have the choice to either dwell in what it's not or live the life he already has laid out for us. So many of us are waiting on him-to get us to where we want, should, need to be-instead he's waiting on us. Waiting on us to let go and let him take care of it. If only more of us would trust in him and surrender the one thing that tends to destroy us all, control...we wouldn't be living stress, trauma-free, but it'd be a lot easier to trudge through it. Though I don't know much, I do know this. For sure.

To all my friends near and far, to those friendships that aren't as strong as they used to be, don't exist anymore, never had hope to begin with, and those that have survived the years...I give you my love, support, shoulder to cry on, encouragement that helps you push forward. To those that can't see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, I wish you strength, love, hope, and happiness among other things. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.