Thank You Very Sweet

Oprah says that everybody’s life can be used to teach.  This requires us to take down our fig leaves though.  When Adam and Eve realized they were naked in the Garden of Good and Evil, they put on fig leaves and hid from God and each other.

Many of us still wear fig leaves today.  We hide big parts of ourselves because we fear humiliation, rejection and pain.

But can I tell you that I have never felt more free than I have as I have shared my truth with you?  It has been two years since Kesner died and sharing this story has been central to  my healing. When I began writing, I was in so much pain that I didn’t care about keeping up heirs and hiding my feelings.  And as I wrote, I got to know myself differently.  I bridged the siloed parts of my story together and came to love and cherish a whole me.

Can I share with you some of what I learned?

1)  I learned that I can’t control anything. Kesner’s death knocked my knees out from under me.  It was unexpected.  But so many of us live in fear of the unexpected.  We allow the unexpextected to dictate our moves in the present.  And at the end of the day, the unexpected might not be all that bad.  Yes Kesner’s death knocked the wind out beneath me, but without it I would not see the LOVE that’s working in my life. God didn’t put more on me then I could bear; even when it was really hard, I was never alone.  So I learned to trust God more. I learned to trust the flow of life. I learned to surrender.

2) I learned to own my feelings. When you are faced with a canyon in life, sometimes the only way to get across it is to climb down into its depths.  For me, walking through the depths of my canyon required owning my whirlwind of feelings and not ever suppressing them.  I am proud of my tears, they remind me that I am alive.  And the beauty of climbing through a canyon is that you are stronger when you climb up the other side.  I am stronger for having embraced the freedom to feel.

3) I have learned about the power of relationships. Human connectedness is at the center of all that is good.  LOVE does not exist in a vacuum, it is there where two or more are gathered.   I learned that relationships require accountability and acceptance; they require work to be sustained.  And I learned that I have some great ones, relationships that are worth the work of sustaining them.

Monet and Me in Princeton

And celebrating them.

Klay and Me on New Year’s Eve…

And honoring them.  I have beautiful people in my life. And I learned about the depths of my love for them as I articulated each one of our stories.  I am blessed.

Celebrating Kristen’s Engagement

4) I learned that I am beautiful just as I am. And that Natural IS Nice. I am loving me, just as God made me. I am enjoying embracing healthy beauty. I am loving my body differently.  I am training to become a yoga teacher; I have eliminated meat from my diet.  I am embracing health for me, and for my future family, my unborn kids and my husband, so that I can be physically and emotionally strong and ready to do all that God is calling me to. I am learning to love me from the inside out.

5) I learned that life is a journey, not a destination.  The goal is to know where you are.  I am clear about where I am and I accept and love me here, and I have some ideas about where I am going. I am a minister, a teacher, a writer, a sociologist, a friend, an activist.  I am a Woman.  And I vision that I will be a wife, a mother, a partner, a leader, a follower, a teacher, a lover, a friend, a minister, an activist, a scholar, A Queen…

I am proud of all of my moving parts.  Life is a journey, and I look forward to sharing this journey with another…

6) I have also learned that I didn’t just love Kesner for who he was, but for who I was with him. With Kesner, I felt safe.  I will feel that safe again.

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Everybody has a story, and when we open up and share our stories we learn and grow and somehow become more whole in the process.  Can we become a more honest society?  Can we be more open?  Can we love more and fear less?  Can we retire protective masks for the sake of authenticity, growth and LOVE?  I hope so…

© Copyright Thank You Very Sweet, 2012