Luggage

Good Morning Company Girls!

Well, the Olympics are almost over...did you watch very much of it? As a Canadian I've been very proud of all the fine work our athletes have accomplished in the last two weeks. In the opening ceremony there were many contributions by Canadian artists, one being a poet named Shane Koyczan.....he recited a poem he had written entitle "We Are More".....I listened with fascination because he was so good...I didn't know who he was but he put such feeling into the words....as I listened these words caught my attention....

'don't let your luggage define your travels...each life unravels differently'...

As a mom of nine with seven being adopted, I thought immediately of my children.....I thought about how some children are already born with a lot of heavy and cumbersome luggage and some aren't...others gather it along the way.....but it's what you do with this luggage that defines who you are......and how each life unravels differently....some of our children have birth siblings that are in other families...they and we don't understand why there lives have unravelled differently then their own......but the whole point is...don't allow this luggage or baggage as I like to call it...define who you are.....many people say....I can't help who I am..I inherited it...it's in my genes......to some degree this is true....but if it's something that you can purpose, with God's help to change...well, then ..you can't hang your hat on that...you cant use it as an excuse for your behaviour or your failures in your life. For instance, my youngest daughter, because of her delays, insists that her anger management problem is because of her birth father...a man whom she hasn't seen since a toddler..was in jail....she blames her anger on him because he must have had anger problems to get in jail....each time I tell her that she cant blame her behaviour on others...she has a choice.....
on the other hand...one of my other daughters does blame her brain deficiencies on her birth mother...and rightly so because the woman did drugs and alcohol while pregnant with her,...but this daughter has also come very far......she has broken the cycle because she will be able to parent a child some day and do it very well, (something her birth mother wasn't able to do with all 6 of her children)...this daughter has excelled in music and sports while struggling academically but is now stepping out into the scary adult world while she is involved in a co-op program that will hopefully give her employment in the health care field.....she's trying!

Another daughter, is working very hard to get her life back on track,...to put her luggage in the right place...to stop the rapid unravelling that was her life for the past few years...and she's doing it! There was a day when she blamed her luggage for everything but now she has perspective and it's wonderful to see....she has a future and it's good...I wont go into any more detail cause she would be upset with me....

...there is a son....he struggled with his luggage for awhile....but he was able to give it a mighty shove and although his life is unravelling very slowly...a little to slowly for him right now....it's still going to be good as long as he stays focused...and I think he will....but another son..well, his luggage still defines him and probably always will....he's become comfortable with it...the weight of it is his security...he's afraid to put it down because then he'd actually have to stand on his own...it's very sad to see.....

We all have our luggage don't we.....we have to be so careful how we let it define us....my life does unravel differently than others....it has from before I was born.....before I was knit together in my mother's womb.....God has defined it that way...why?....I have no earthly idea....someday I'll find out but for now.....it is good.