I am grateful for my amazing family who I really do love so much. I am grateful for the experiences I have had even in these last few years that have tested my resilience as I cared for Oakes. He has given me the opportunity to get to know life in a different way than I did before. I have always had a love for being alive and stored somewhere inside me was also a number of feelings that perhaps needed to be set free and feelings have been my Goliath since I experience them in such a HUGE way. It really has been an education in new ways of looking at emotions that really felt so terrible at times I am actually not sure how I survived. I’m guessing it was so I could believe in a Heavenly Father who is real and also loving and kind in teaching me. I don’t know who my Father in Heaven was before and I still don’t know now, but I am starting to believe I can have one that is more loving and kind in my life. A Father in Heaven who can teach me to be resilient when feelings come and will not leave me or stop loving me even if the feelings get super huge. Not all the feelings are yucky, some of them are full of intense compassion or love for life, but in the past they have felt scary and I didn’t know how to protect myself from what I experienced.
This journey has been one in learning how to protect myself from unwanted feelings and experiences and how to show up when I really don’t feel comfortable. It is a journey of being willing to let people see who I am and find the real part of a Father in Heaven who will love me even when I’m scared and have been scarred from the past. Is my Heavenly Father the one who welcomes everyone? Or is my Heavenly Father the one who leaves me without protection? I have the power to choose my Heavenly Father and trust that he exists somewhere somehow and is willing to love me as I am at any point on this adventure. I know I will see my family because they will come see me when. I want to have the be able to meet them wherever they are and to care where they are. I will know my friends by all of the people who can see me and will love me anyway.