"We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness."
-David Weatherford
Third Lesson: It's All Right, to Not be All Right, All the Time.
Lesson number three, so long in the making.
Growing up, I was an incredibly emotional kid. Since about the age of 14, I have lost that. I am still emotional but only about weird things like RomCom's and any Nicholas Sparks book I read. I hardly get upset ab0ut real life stuff like money, time, bills, hard times, etc.
That being said, I couldn't have learned this lesson myself. It took the help of a very special girl I know. I am keeping her name disclosed so when I refer to her, I will say Janine.
I was at a church camp a week ago, and we are broken into small groups called, "Family Groups" I was a sponsor and Janine was in my group, letting us become close friends and also allowing me to be a leader to her.
At the very end of the week, Janine had revealed to me a problem she had just learned about in her family. This was a problem she had blocked from her memory and had only learned about because she read about it on court papers.
As a child, Janine was beaten severly.
The sad thing was that Janine had been having nightmares about her father, a man she hardly ever knew, everyday for four years and never knew why until she found out by reading about it. It completely broke me.
After Janine told me about it, we went to find another group leader because being a child myself, I didn't know how to handle it. I have learned growing up, that grown-ups often aren't sure of the right approach but sometimes they just guess, and sometimes it works. I think this is what happened here when we went to grab one of God's greatest women, my friend Andi.
As the night went on, Janine had induced herself into a panic attack and almost passed out.
Her cousin told us that right after she found the paperwork that the exact same thing happened with passing out spells.
This is the part of the story where my lesson hit me right in the face. Not only will things get bad enough to make you ill, they can make you have symptoms that are beyond your control and ability to fix.
We cannot fix everything, by ourselves. We cannot be all right, all the time.
A hard lesson to be learned, but one definitely for the taking. If you feel as though you are bottling something up, tell someone. While it made me a nervous wreck when Janine told me what had happened, I am so glad and so blessed that she did. I honestly don't know what would have happened if she would have kept it all in. Life is rough, let it out.
Yes, I know this is cheesey, but really. One of my dreams is to have a project like this happen anywhere with my involvement. One of my favorite videos.. well.. let's say EVER! Enjoy, and remember to let it out!
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