Living in the moment!

 

January 18

 

Its days like today that make me wish I lived in Arizona! I feel like Frosty the snowman on ice! Wouldn't it be neat if we could have a winter wonderland with 70-degree weather? How can something so beautiful be so dang cold?

My kids laugh at me because they know I probably wouldn't be happy in an all summer climate. (But it would be nice to find out, wouldn't it?)

The awesome thing about living in New England is the change of seasons. We have gorgeous breezy springs, hot sizzling summers, crisp, fresh falls and beautiful shimmering winters! What else could one ask for? The challenge arises when we don't enjoy the season we are in, because we are too busy thinking of the season that was or is to come.

Compare this to the different phases of our life. We have infancy to childhood, through adolescence to adulthood and beyond. We need to stop looking back in melancholia to the past or longingly daydreaming about our future.

Have you ever done that? Daydream about how great things were in the past? Or how great things will be in the future?

Ever notice something strange when we do that?

We missed what was going on today!! We should use all our senses and take in the moment we are in, right now!

The reason the past looks so good is because we missed half of it daydreaming about the future!!

Now that we are in the future, today, we're still not enjoying it!

If we keep that up, pretty soon we're going to have no "future" left to look forward to! How sad would that be?

We shouldn't mourn the passing of each era. Instead we should savor it, catalog it and make a wonderful memory out of it!

Just like snow reminds us of warm cozy fires and family gatherings at the holidays, so too should each piece of our life emote wonderful memories of times gone by.

The past should be used as a guide to help us make our "today" better! It shouldn't be looked upon in sadness or regret but used as a wonderful gauge to build a brighter today!

Some people might say I think like this because I had a perfect childhood.

Please, I don't even want to hear it! I grew up in an abusive home. I got abandoned by my biological mother at the age of two, was physically and emotionally abused by my adoptive mother.

I was also abused by her husband and two of her boyfriends before my 9th birthday.

Yet after having healed and putting all that emotional baggage to rest, there are still wonderful memories that occurred during that time in my life. How sad if all I did was focus on the negative! The same man that abused me when I was five years old introduced me to the beauty of classical music.

One of her boyfriends, who also abused me, showed me that I had a gift for art.

It took me a long time to be able to separate the two. Can you imagine the great loss to me if I refused to see the difference and only focused on the abuse?

Granted, it was hard at first to let go of the anger and resentment. How someone I loved so much could betray my trust was beyond my comprehension. I remember how certain symphonies would make me cringe when I was younger. I avoided them for a long time. I also did not do any kind of drawing or sketching until I was "found out" by my hubby Mel.

No one in my family knew I could draw. I had buried that God given talent because to me it represented one of my abusers. But luckily with Mel's help I was able to refuse to mesh the bad with the good. I dissected the malignant memories from the positive ones, just like a surgeon removing cancerous cells from healthy ones. Would the doctor take out all the cells just because bad ones were attached to them? No, of course not! He would only remove the bad ones and leave the healthy ones behind so the tissue could heal quicker. So too, was the healing process in my life. Once I removed the bad from the good, I was able to appreciate the positive aspects more fully. As a result of doing this, my son Chris not only loves the classics but he knows them intimately. He is familiar with the great composers. He can play some of them on the piano and comprehends the deep spiritual messages behind those pieces. Had I not overcome this challenge I would have taught my children nothing but contempt. Contempt for some of the greatest works God gave men inspiration to write. Think how sad it would be if my negative experiences had clouded my love for Handel's Messiah? Oh, what a loss to my soul!

The other day I hear on the radio that Beethoven's father was an abusive, mean alcoholic. It was said that he would come home drunk late at night and drag his little 6 year-old son out of bed. He would force him to practice in the cold and dark by candlelight until the sun came up! Neighbors stated that they could hear the drunken man yelling at the crying child. He would tell him how horribly he played and how awful his music was! What unbearable abuse for a young child to endure! Yet Beethoven turned all that hate and anger into some of the most beautiful, inspirational music known to mankind! Imagine if Beethoven had given in to the hatred for his father and the things he taught him?

What if he had decided to hate the music and stop playing, writing or composing? I shudder to think of the great void in the musical world! I can never make it through Beethoven's 9th symphony without welling up in tears over how beautiful and moving it is. Once, my son Chris played that piece at a church event when he was 11 years old. To see my young son so focused on bringing forth that great heavenly sound from that piano was so humbling yet rewarding at the same time.

I also had the opportunity to showcase two charcoal sketches that I did of my husband and one of my oldest sons at a church sponsored art show. Even though they were crude and my hand was untrained the fact that people knew who the men were in the drawings was really cool. I was overwhelmed when two gentlemen who were artists in their own right, told me to never stop drawing. They both told me separately that I had a gift. They encouraged me to keep using it.

For all the harm my abusers had caused me, I found some good that had come from them. Just like Beethoven had found some good from his abuser.

With tears streaming down my cheeks as I listened to my son, I was eternally grateful that I had removed the malignancy from my life!

Here's to you Beethoven, I know you're playing in heaven for the big guy now!

Comments

[comeintomy world]

Thank you for sharing the wonderful healing you've allowed to enter your life. You are an inspiration!