Dear Kitty,

By The Mind Filled on June 26, 2013 • ( 0 )

Dear Kitty,

It’s been said that the things we go through in life are meant to prepare us for things that have not yet come. Experiences or passions of our younger years may very well set us up for fulfilling a purpose later on that we never saw coming. Proven over and over we find that even the bad things can be used to shape us and refine us.

I’ve been writing for a long time. Lately I’ve been looking back.

I guest posted at “Four Plus An Angel” one day in April of 2011 about writing stories with my young daughters as the authors.

“I know there will be times in their lives where a wolf spills their tea or huffs and puffs their castles to crumbled, scattered remains. I pray that when this page is facing them, they remember that the outcome has not been written yet. I pray that they understand that the choices they make in their reactions will be what determines what “The End” will look like for them. The scary wolves, crumbled castles and the spilled tea will find them no matter how powerful their kingdom might be; it’s part of everyone’s Life Story.

Until the day comes when they will sit alone with their blank notebook and ask themselves “What happens next?” I will be there to tear out the pages they are not yet prepared to deal with, leaving only the pages of whimsical magic.

When they do reach that page in their adult life of the scary wolf and don’t know “What happens next?” I will be there as well. I will hold their hands and their hearts; together we will finish the pages. I will always help them rebuild their crumbled castles and clean up the spilled tea.

Although they may walk alone within their story, I will always be reading.
We will make it to “The End” together as our stories intertwine to our “Happily Ever After.”

I never dreamed that 3 months later, there would be a page in their story that I couldn’t rip out. A story that would not be magical. I couldn’t fathom that one day soon I would tell them their father was dead.

________________

The very day; mere hours before that he took his life, I posted at “String Of Pearls”

“How often in our lives does a storm cloud make an appearance that we are so focused on the negative that it will bring that we don’t see the thin sliver of light glowing brightly at the edges?

A reminder of the bright sun behind it that we long for. The knowledge that the cloud and its rain will pass. We may not know how long it will rain for or even how destructive the force of nature will come into our lives; but we are assured it won’t last forever.”

How was I to know that I was hours away from the biggest storm cloud my children and I were likely to ever face?

_________________

As I’ve looked back, I can see the hands and words of God that were beginning to prepare my heart and mind for what was to come. Whispering truths that I dutifully wrote out, but I would be asked soon to live out.

I don’t look back very often, but I am encouraged when I do. I can’t simply focus on the dark moments, I have to look at each situation in full context. I can see the prep work that led me to each moment of struggle and then I can see where I was carried through it on a promise of love and life.

I would imagine the same is true for you.

Each moment in your life, you were equipped for. Yes, you probably struggled hard to just make it through, but you can see the full context of blessings by looking at how the past and present played out.

Maybe you are in that dark moment still. You can’t see how it supposed to work for the good.

“The Good” has never meant a perfectly blissful life and I hope that’s not what you are measuring yourself by. “The Good” simply means that you fulfilled your purpose as designed. You take those dark clouds and those horrible stories on pages you can’t rip out and you outshine those by using what the hurt gave you to help others.

Don’t ever be afraid to look back. Don’t be afraid of that bad story. You were prepared for this in ways you might not be aware of quite yet.

Philippians 1:6 – And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns