thirteen

let the light shine from within.

today is a day of thanksgiving. a day to count blessings. spend surrounded by love. faith. joy. there is a favorite saying of mine, ‘grace isn’t something you say at the end of a meal, it is a way of living’. and I must practice what I preach.

I am reading a book, The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. she encourages us to live and love with a whole heart. I am about half way through the book and with each page I feel newly aware. hopeful. encouraged. I am seeing that the process of setting the course of this stage of my life - determining my path, directing my goals – is as much (if not more) a matter of understanding myself as it is of figuring out what I want to do when I grow up.

but the book and it’s highly researched, but realistically simple common-sense approach, to living life has begun to shape me. to examine my life. how I live it. how I can live it, in Brené’s word, wholeheartedly. to examine all the emotions that make up our being human. make us who and what we are. act how we do. interact. react.

this sense of discovery is enlightening. humbling. understanding, although just begun, is power. and power, as she describes it is ‘the ability to affect change’.

I am learning. and oh so thankful.

peace.