One Wee Spark

I wrote this entry over a year ago...but felt it had value today. I hope you find it helpful :) I had originally planned to write about addiction today, but the events of my day have led me to contemplate a thought that I wrote about yesterday even further. Everyone experiences loss, pain, and trauma at some time in their life. It's universal. Regardless of what your feelings are regarding religion or doctrine, there can be no argument that everyone experiences these things at some point, often many times, in their lives. I've also noticed that there are a myriad of ways of dealing with and facing challenges, trauma, pain and loss. Some people embrace the pain and make their home in it. They become bound to the pain until it begins to define their normality. Eventually, life becomes too heavy to deal with because the pain is overwhelming and holds the person down from new possibilities. Other people feel the pain and loss yet struggle uphill to overcome and move on. While they ...

When I was a child, my grandmother had a pillow that she had embroidered with cute animals on it and the following saying: "If you love something, give it away. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn't, it never was." I loved the pillow, not only for the picture but the quote although as a child I could hardly understand it. Even now, as an adult and mother to a large brood, I only barely have a glimpse of what it means. What little I understand about love, I have learned from God. In fact, my daily meditation recently took me through I John where God's identity is revealed to us through His love: "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." (I John 4:9-10) Love is the ultimate gift, but it's not a feeling; love is an action, a sacrifice. In fact, I believ...

One of the hardest lessons I've learned about dealing with my mother and her compulsive hoarding is to let her go. I left home at the tender age of 18, visiting only occasionally and almost never going into her home. I'd wanted her to change for as long as I can remember, but some part of me must have gotten that I couldn't make her change. Loved ones of hoarding-affected individuals talk about how hoarding is similar in many respects to an addiction. Although it is not classified by mental health specialists as an addiction, they are aware of similarities. Give the adult child of a hoarding-affected individual the "Laundry List" traits of Adult Children of Alcoholics , and most will identify with them. (I believe that this is because hoarding seems to be a progressive disorder, intensified by unresolved grief and loss--basically making an increase in the severity of acquiring and inability to get rid of things the person's coping device, much like alcohol, na...

When I was younger, I thought it was quite humorous how much effort women put into coloring their hair to cover gray and also the amount of money they spent on wrinkle creams, cosmetic surgeries and other things to keep from looking old beyond their years. When I turned 28, I found my first gray hair, sprouting from the top front of my head near my face. It had been a rough couple of years, but I was blown away by this hair that was betraying me! But I had vowed years before that I would grow old gracefully and not color to cover gray hair. Recently, I have been dismayed by my acne scars and new wrinkles around my mouth. The acne scars are heartbreaking because I know if I had just listened and not picked at my breakouts, I wouldn't have them now. But even more heartbreaking are the wrinkles around my mouth. And that is because they are from years of smoking cigarettes. So I started thinking about scars and wrinkles. My son had a bone graft procedure several years ago to repair his...