Pain changed me

At age 32 I could only be out of bed 20 minutes a day.  I passed out daily.  The doctors assured me there was nothing wrong with me.  I saw no end in sight.  My children took care of much of the house work that wasn't done by DH.  I did not choose this.  I did not know how to change it.  I hit bottom.  God loved me at the bottom and encouraged me to keep moving.  He reassured me that the only way He could direct me is if I moved.  So I struggled forward taking on my own research as to what was wrong with my body and why I couldn't function.  Finally progressing far enough I entered counseling with DH still thinking that if we fixed our marriage then everything would be fine.  I was so naive.  Stunning revelations in those first 6 months of counseling.  I did not know what dissociation was.  I did not know that my blanks of time were for a reason.  I did not know my own past.  All of that changed with an all mighty crash.  I am in better shape than I ever have been.  I can do more in a day than I could in a week at age 32.  The pain of remembering.  The pain in my body.  The suffering changed me.  I believe for the better.

Years ago when email was fun with lots of stories I received this in my email:

Potato, egg, coffee

Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it.  She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.   

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.  He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter.  The daughter, moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.

Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

“Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer”, he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft.

He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity – the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.   

The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “

In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

Which one are you?

http://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2010/09/potato-egg-coffee.html