richelle-e-goodrich

Happiness found me alone one day and took me by the hand.He showed me how the sun gave out its warmth across the land.Sadness found me content and smiling upward at the sun.He talked of droughts and blindness and what burning rays had done.Happiness found me alone again and pointed to the sky.He showed me how the storms created rainbows way up high.Sadness found me intrigued and took me to the rainbow__ end.He showed me how it disappeared to ne__r return again.Happiness found me alone and taught me how to sing a song.He sang a dozen melodies as I chirped right along.Sadness found me singing out and covered up his ears.He said the noise was deafening, and wished he couldn__ hear.Happiness found me alone and gave me seven coins of gold.He showed me many fancy things that merchants often sold.Sadness found me admiring the pretty things I__ bought.He pointed out my empty purse and money I had not.Happiness found me alone and helped me talk to someone new.He called the boy my friend and said that I was his friend too.Sadness found me together with my kind, attentive friend.He whispered of betrayal and how broken hearts don__ mend.Happiness found me alone and held me tight in his embrace.He whispered kindness in my ear and kissed me on the face.Sadness found me with Happiness but before he spoke at all,I told him he__ have better luck at talking to the wall.

Every heart has a layer of sadness, whether deeply buried or covering the surface for all to see.

Sadness is like sandpaper; it rubs at our sharper edges, softening and humbling us, making us ready for a coat of compassion.

My pain builds like storm clouds__assive, dark, and heavy with teardrops. Moisture falls torrential as if my world is a violent, eternal downpour; however, at long last the source runs dry and the bitter storm does cease. Blue skies dare to glow where the gloom has dissipated. I breathe it in, hoping to cleanse my inner soul. A laden heart tells me the truth: the clear sky is an illusion. Old pain rushes back like a flood, providing means for clouds to form and expand once again until it is too much to bear and the heaviness turns to rain. I cannot find refuge from this woe. It is my never-ending heartache.

Sometimes all you can do is hug a friend tightly and wish that their pain could be transferred by touch to your own emotional hard drive.

Raindrops fall from clouds of gray.The fragile flowers grow.Teardrops seem all I can say.They speak of endless woe.Your fingers wipe my grief away.A seed of love you sow.A hardened heart reverts to clay.You mold my love just so.

A word of consolation may sweetly touch the ear.Now and then a quiet songwill clear the mind of fear.A simple act of kindnesscan ease a load of care.Stories told in memorydiminish all despair.A whispered prayer of comfortdraws angel arms around.Counting blessings, great and small,helps gratitude abound.These acts, all sympathetic,will kindly play their part.But seldom do they dry the tearsshed mutely in the heart.

The effects of loss are acute, and unique to each individual. Not everyone mourns in the same way, but everyone mourns.

It is a difficult thing__f not impossible__o forgive oneself for foolish errors, not for trampling a life or goring another with sharp horns, but for being the fool who opened the gate and let the bull out, blind to potential consequences.

Forgiveness is a revolving door positioned_in your path. _You must step through it to move on, but it takes both timing and choice to escape walking circles inside.

We all suffer ills at the hands of others; however, reactions to these injustices differ like night and day. Many seek to punish the world for their suffering, while some work hard to save the world from experiencing similar grief.

It is a fight to let go of a past that refuses to withdraw its sticky tentacles from your present.

Forgiving yourself can prove as difficult as licking a scab off your elbow.

If I expect nothing of you, it will be far easier to forgive your offenses than if I place my whole world in your hands.

No one is born a sprinter. We all learn to push ourselves up from the floor and then balance before taking that first, wobbly step. It is an individual choice where to go from there.

Far more important than the tribulations and heartaches, the thrills, merriment, and pleasures of life is what you learn from it all. It isn't the tunnel we pass through that matters, it's what emerges on the other side.

I learn by doing....the same thing over and over and over again countless times.

For things I am not thankful for__xperiences I would never volunteer to relive__ recognize how they have changed me. My depth of compassion and humility, the sincerity of my empathy and understanding, and the duration of my patience have all been refined by bitter suffering. I thank God for the lessons learned. I am a better person for it, but I still abhor those awful trials.