Recently, I came across the following that I had written years ago, duing a very difficult time.
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On Thursday, I was driving home from my counselling appointment, and I stopped by a dollar store to get something. It was in the stationery section. I noticed various journals (I was looking for something else), and a certain journal jumped out at me. I don’t know if I have ever been in a store where I felt I absolutely had to buy something, but that is what happened. So I bought the journal. On the cover were the words: “Life is Beautiful.”
As I drove home, I was contemplating what I would do with it, and I began thinking I would fill it with reasons that life is beautiful – sort of like a gratitude journal. As I began thinking of all the reasons why life is beautiful, my attitude became very positive and thankful.
The next morning it hit me! One of the things the therapist wanted me to do was find out who I am, which I thought was strange because I know who I am, and I am comfortable with who I am. But I guess he is a pretty wise therapist who sees things I don’t, as in there was something of me that was lost.
As I was saying, the next morning it hit me. “Life is beautiful” is who I am. What I mean is ever since I was a child, I have had that attitude. I was thankful, even as a child, that I was born in Canada. “Who am I, that I should be born in this peaceful country?” I would think. I was filled with gratitude and thanked my mother for “borning me!” I was just grateful to be alive. And that carried over into my adult life.
But in the past year, I had lost that basic joy. I had sort of vaguely noticed it (out of the corner of my eye, metaphorically speaking), but I hadn’t spent any time really considering it.
Yet, life is beautiful. That doesn’t mean I am not fully and painfully aware of the problems of life, both personally, and worldwide, but quiet joy and gratitude has been restored.
I am Robin Gilman. And I know in my innermost being that while there is pain and suffering and evil in the world, there is so much beauty, kindness, goodness, and love. Life is beautiful!
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Since this experience, for years now I have kept up the practice of each morning writing in my gratitude journal things that I am thankful for from the day before. I start a new journal every year on January 1st. I looked back at the first page of this year’s gratitude journal, and what I wrote there is true, even amidst painful circumstances: “Life is beautiful” because it is a gift from God,and because I walk it with Him.
