My Deep, Dark Secret

I am deep and dark. That is my secret.

I know that I did not have you fooled - you know that I am not the life of the party, the one whose laugh travels above the noise of the crowd, the one that people are drawn to. I have had this epiphany in the last few months though. God gave me this personality for a reason, and He wants me to do something good with it. Ta-da.

For much of my life I have been drawn to tragedy. Sad people. Hurting people. I can relate to them in some way. They don't scare me or make me uncomfortable. And while that was a good thing in a lot of cases, I don't think that I had a good handle on what to do with that sad information once it was a part of me. I think that over the last few months I have been learning that I am supposed to use other people's hard circumstances - and my relationship to them - in my own life to bring me to a point of appreciation and thankfulness for the life that I have.

You see, it is so hard for me to find the bright side sometimes. When I look at a cup, it is almost always half empty. I know, that makes some of you uncomfortable to hear, but it is true. Well, my life has had a lot of ups and downs in the last few years. A lot. Sometimes I think that I cannot bear it anymore. But when I choose to look at things from my new-found perspective... not pretending that I see that the glass is half full (because, I am sorry, sometimes it is not!), but truly appreciating the blessings in my life... I can handle it. I am thankful for it. I am learning to keep a running list of my blessings in my head, and by some mysterious plan of God's those things are magnified because of the deep, dark things that I am drawn to.

Woo Hoo. It is okay to be me!!! God likes it that way. He can use me that way. I am learning to like it that way too.