Acceptance | alesiablogs

The Winter Season is known to bring depression. I hope my photo shows you hope in the midst of yours as it does mine.

My grandmother had a saying that just about sums up how I have felt this week. She would say, “I think I am gonna crawl into a hole and pull in the hole after me.” She lived her whole life in Western Kentucky and died when she was about 80 years old thirty years ago.
Grandmother could be a strange woman, but I know I only saw love from her. She cooked the best butter biscuits and fried chicken a little girl could ever want!
Yet, it seemed to me she suffered at times from depression. I do not know if she was ever clinically diagnosed with it, but I do wonder now about it. But you know one thing I do know is she loved me more than life itself and that was for real. Thank you grandmother.
As I struggle with the angst of my life during a season that we should be thankful, I must accept what I can not change. I recently wrote that my gut check times have become downright vomitus in nature. See this post to catch up: https://alesiablogs.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/acceptance/
I however at the time did not share about the separation I am going through with my husband of 22 years. What I tried to do is put on a good face with you to bring positive in my life when in reality it is not there.
One thing I must do though to move on from this timeframe is to accept what I can not change. We raised two beautiful sons and one of them you all know is Luke who has autism. My life’s journey brought many people through the doors of my home to assist me with him. This perhaps may have been more of a gift to humanity than I will ever really know.
Out of all the care providers that assisted me with Luke, I saw many of them leave our home and become professionals in the world of Teaching, Physical Therapy, Speech therapy, Psychologists, and last but not least Nursing. My life meant something and the lives touched have gone on to touch 100’s of others.
If you are suffering depression and you are reading my post today-know you are not alone. Your life matters. It really does. People come through your life everyday and you have no idea what you did to have made a difference. Remember it is at times the unseen that you are not aware of that is life changing.
Today I am thankful for you my reader. Happy Thanksgiving to my “blogging family” and especially those of you that really do take the time to read.
This post is dedicated to Myrtle who cooked many of my Thanksgiving meals when I was growing up.

As the old saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. This proverb is as old as time practically and has a connotation of referring that we enjoy safety with others that are like minded.
What about friendship? Do we tend to migrate to those that are similar to us? My husband likes to say I make friends easily. I actually think what he is really saying is I have good communication skills. Part of me says that there is truth in that, but most healthy life long friendships take a very long time to cultivate. They are worth it, but they are risky at times. When you make yourself vulnerable to another, you are saying to that friend that they are worth the investment. Most of these kind of investments will reap you rewards. As a financial friend of mine would say a good friendship will be full of big dividends for a lifetime.
As I have studied the wonder of friendship this past week, I have seen my son lose his best friend. It made me realize how short of time we have on this earth and we better make each moment count. I have of late not been the best of friends and have come to a place that I needed to work on being more honest in my conversations and also reaching out and asking for help.
What I think I have been learning is to accept that the human spirit has flaws , defects, and blemishes. In all reality I was actually identifying these issues in my own person. Now that is heavy.
So today I am relearning a big lesson about myself. I need help and at times this comes straight from the Divine who is our best friend. It is easy to think all we need are good human friendships to share all our problems with. The truth is friendships will suffer if we place too much on our friends to bear. This is for God alone.
In reality healthy friendships will grow and not short circuit when we learn the gift of how friendship shouId really look like. If God forgives us, we should learn to forgive our friends. We should not take our friendships for granted. I love Proverbs 17:9 which reminds us love grows when we choose to forgive, but if we dwell on it the best of friends will become separated.