You Do Not Know How Strong You Are Until You Have To Be Strong.

I read that quote somewhere recently and I could never have understood that better than I do now. I have come to realize that there are things that seem like the end of the world but, they will not kill me. I have dealt with issues that I would never have imagined that I would deal with. This has been the hardest six months of my life without a doubt, some of the things that I have heard and things that have been said to me I will remember forever. I do not have to let it make me bitter and I do not have to let it determine what kind of person I am but there are some things that are said to you that will change your life forever. I want to be changed for the better. I do not want to look back at this time (honestly I do not want to have to look back at this time ever again. I wish that it could just be erased) and feel that this time in my life made me a weak person. If I have to look back at this and I know I will then I will look back this time and know for sure that I came out stronger than ever. I will have come out of this learning how to love better than I have ever loved, trusted more that I have ever trusted, given more than I have ever given, and lived more abundantly than I ever have before. This will be for me an experience that will shape who I am into something more beautiful and wonderful than I could have imagined ever being. I think that already I have learned some things and that yes the trial may still be going on but I am different than I was before it started. I have learned what love really is and that I know how to love someone unconditionally. You don't have to lose love for someone just because they do not have the same love for you. Love, real love is never ending and it does not go away. Real love does not allow you to be selfish, real love is putting someone else's needs before your own. I am sure that I have learned this but not only that I have also applied this to how I love. I have also learned how to just be quiet. Sometimes there are no words for the feelings that you feel and sometimes telling someone the truth over and over again is more damaging to them than it is good for them. Honesty is always key and you should not have to lie but if you have said the truth then let it stand on it's own. You do not always need to scream it at someone for them to hear you. Sometimes opening your mouth when you do not know what to say is damaging to you and to the other person. Sometimes fighting about something that is not about you or is not a permanant issue can break a relationship. In all of these things I have trialed and errored my way into the knowledge that somethings you just need to be quiet about. Silence is not always acceptance, silence can generally make a bigger statement than running your mouth out of anger. I have learned to be patient. You cannot rush something or rid yourself of something that you have no control over. I have prayed about things over and over and over again and I know that every time God as heard me and is taking care of me and evern though I do not see the results I want, I can wait. I know that what I am waiting for is exactly what I need. I have learned to trust comepletely and I have learned that trust in someone can be ripped away from you with one word. I know that sounds odd because how can you trust completely when its being ripped away from you. Trust is an action. You have to put things into trusting someone and you can do that completely whether they take it away every single day or not. My pastor said something a few weeks ago that has helped me tremendously. God believes every day that people are going to make the right decisions and when they don't he still believes that they will because he has created all of us and we are his children and when people are not living in the way that he designed for them then they are living a lie. If they are living a lie and you believe the lie about them then how will they ever live in the truth  of who they are. If you cannot believe the truth about someone then they probably never will. So yes people do dumb things and sometimes these things affect me because I am involved in their lives but what they are doing is not who they are. When they do wrong things that is them living the lie and I believe eveytime that they will live in the truth and do the right thing. So yes today you said something that broke my heart and took my trust in you away but as soon as I put this into perspective I will trust you again because the truth is that you are a good person and you are doing the best you can and that I can trust you. I also want to live in the truth and do the best that I know how. Because of this I am strong and I am stronger than I ever thought that I could be. I would never have known the power that I have unless I had to have it. I would never have known that I was a fighter unless I had to fight and I will not have known true victory if I had never had to be victorious over something.