“There’s a spirit of a storm in my soul, a restlessness that I can’t seem to tame. Thunder and lightning follow everywhere I go. There’s a spirit of a storm in my soul. There’s a hurricane thats raging through my blood, and I can’t find a way to calm the sea. Maybe I’ll find someday the waters aren’t so rough, but right now they’ve got the best of me. But oh, it’s been a long, long time, since I had real peace of mind. So I’m just gonna sit right here, in this old chair, until this storm rolls by.”

 

Sometimes all you can do is sit right here until the storm rolls by. This has been my experience anyway. The storms come just like the sunshine and they both have their place. These days I wonder why are there so many storms, but I do know that there is a reason. A rainbow cannot come without the rain, so I am going to keep my eyes to the heavens looking for that moment when the colors first start to appear. I have seen the colors before. In the beginning of their formation, in the middle when their color are the strongest and at the end as they slip away, either due to the sun pushing the clouds away or by the rain setting back in. But in looking back at all of the stages in my life, I have learned that I learn the most from the heaviest storms. And without these storms I would never be able to really appreciate the sunshine.

Mother Teresa has a famous quote “I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” I have lived those words over this past year. I am starting to appreciate these lessons, but I also have these moments where I just want the sun to shine again. In my life everything is all or nothing, or so it seems. I really do not have very much middle ground and I never really have. Even though I know that gray does exist, I seem to align with either the black or the white. I am not a middle of the road person. Maybe that is partially why my life is a beautiful day or a dark storm. They are following my thought pattern. Well, now there is a thought! I do believe that we create our future by our thoughts. Knowing that we have had a hand in the hardest lessons in life that have caused us our deepest pain is a concept that is very hard to swallow. But it is true for me all the same. Life looks different when you can take a step back and take a little responsibility.

During my younger years it was easier for me to sit back and blame others for the hard times and the things they had done to me. But when I can begin to see that even without understanding why something happened, that it plays a part of who I am today then somehow it eases the anger and the pain. Learning is something I strive for everyday. If I can take from the storm of today what is being taught to me then hopefully I won’t have the same storm again tomorrow. I have had a lot of repeated storms. It has taken a lot of time and a lot of patience, mine and the people who love me, to get me to this point of awareness. Knowledge is power, and so is awareness. And today I am working on forgiving myself when I slip back into that old frame of thinking. That thinking that leads me to look outwardly instead of inwardly for the answers, for the solutions. Deep down I wish that there was a knight in shining armor out there that could rush in and fight the inner battles for me! But I know that I do not need to be rescued. That I have all the power that is needed in any given moment, for anything that is brought before me. Now to just remember that tomorrow….

In Peace, Michelle