Shattered Glass

Yesterday as my children were playing outside, they broke a very special mirror of mine.  Now, you may be asking yourselves, if it was so special to you, why was it outside?  That is a great question!  As you know, we are temporarily living with my folks while my hubby goes to school. Well... there was no room for the mirror in the house and I asked my husband to put it up in the attic.  Days passed, weeks passed, months passed and that mirror sat on the back patio, sheltered from the rain.  My kids got a wild hair and decided they would pull it out and play with it.  It is a mirror that swivels and stands on its own.  It was a gift many years ago at a time when we didn't have much money.  He brought it home for me to say "I love you".  So yes, it was special to me. 

I was upset, to say the least, and I wanted to SCREAM!  But this little voice in the back of my head told me to remember that it was just a mirror and mirrors can be replaced.  So I paced a bit outside and went in and talked with them about what happened.  I left the broken glass on the ground and told them not to go out... I didn't want to face it until the next morning.  Luckily it was near bed time anyway.

So I went out there this morning and began cleaning it up.  And a thought came to me.  As I picked each piece up, I thought about how this was a reflection of my life.  I had a life that I loved, I liked how it looked, how it felt, how it was.  It functioned well and I saw a bright future.  And then one day it was shattered.  Just like that... gone.  Gone was the lifestyle I was accustomed to.  Gone were all the little luxuries I used to enjoy.  Gone was the security I felt.  Gone gone gone. Shattered, broken.

And I feel like just as I picked up each of those pieces of glass, that is what I am doing daily.  I am picking up those broken pieces.  I can't fix the mirror.  I can't fix my situation.  But I can throw away the mirror and buy a new one.  It is replaceable.  Such is life... I have slowly been picking up the pieces.  It's not possible for me to piece it all together the way it used to be.  So I get to begin a NEW life.  And as we are working together to build a new future, I can just be content in knowing that the next mirror I buy will be even better than the last one I had.  It's that simple. 

I don't know what the future may hold.  But I do know this... I am choosing every day to just breathe and find those simple pleasures.  This has been the bumpiest ride of my life.  It's uncomfortable, some aspects are undesireable... but if I focus on the negative, that's all I see.  So, I am finding joy in the journey, as difficult as it may be.  I am grateful, so grateful for a wonderful community of loving friends and family or I might not be able to find those simple pleasures.