What you don't realize...

Until it's already taken nearly everything from you, we often don't realize how important it is to surround ourselves with people who will always lift us up no matter what. I am extremely blessed to have a very large group of people whom I have known my entire life who do this any time, day or night, no matter what they have going on in their lives. My church family. I was born and raised in the same church that my momma was born and raised in. My grandpa was a deacon there and taught Sunday school. I have people in my life who pray for me and lift me up, who have loved my family for long before I ever came into the picture.

I know that a lot of people aren't big on social media and to each their own. For me, during the last eight years of my life, it has been the main way that I get to stay in touch with my church family. It's been years and years since I've been there and I've lived as far as a thousand miles away but they are always there. When a variety of family members have been gone through cancer, when I've lost grandparents, when I've been in so much pain that all I could do was cry myself to sleep, when I said goodbye to the child I loved as my own (and so many other things), all I had to do was write one post and I had dozens of people praying for me. Dozens of people lifting me up. If any of them post anything, they are instantly in my prayers as well.

Given that I've known my entire life just how important it is to surround yourself with people who lift you up, who encourage you and genuinely want the best for you, how is it possible to not see how important that is in your personal, day to day life? For me having someone who is supportive of my wants and and my needs, who understands to the best of their ability how I might physically feel and how that affects my emotions is essential. When I don't have that in my life it stresses me out, I lose sleep, I have even worse pain from the way my muscles tense up and it physically makes me sick.

I mentioned that every day this month I am supposed to say one positive thing about myself...and how hard that can be for me. It may seem silly but when you mentally get used to beating yourself up because of people who were in your life for so long, it's a hard pattern to break. This whole month thus far has shown me things about myself every single day that have released a lot of pent up thoughts and emotions...and that's a fantastic thing! I somehow didn't realize how much I have beaten myself up for...how much I haven't forgiven myself for.

Do you know what all of that physically does to a healthy person? Do you know what it does to someone who has had chronic pain for half of their life?

Today I was reminded of things that I used to allow to happen to me...things I used to allow to be said to me and of me. There were things that I never realized that I LET happen until after I was removed from the situation. I was driving home tonight from work and thought how freeing it is to have someone in my life who pushes me to see the best in myself...someone who pushes me to see that all of the things I want for myself and for my life I can absolutely have. Having someone concerned for my total well-being is such a blessing to me.

xoxo