Joy in Pain.

Life is beautiful. My blog is appropriately titled as such. And yet sometimes, despite the fact that life is indeed beautiful, it's easy to look around and see so much bleakness, darkness, devastation and heartache. Life, as you've come to know it, completely throws a catch 22 in your immediate direction and you're left gasping for the very air you were previously enjoying. And what's worse is that suffering is not partial. At all. Heartache and pain rain on the just as well as the unjust. But it's the true heroes that are able to rise above and reclaim what was taken away from them. No, more than reclaim. Own. I long for the heart of a warrior. For the passion of one who's loved more deeply than words can express. For the faith like a child that defies all common sense, logic and reason. I crave innocence in its most raw composition. And truth. For it is only in the truth that we find freedom. And in that freedom is the absence of all fear and the desire to live fully and breath again. FDR said it better than I ever can when he stated that "We have nothing to fear except fear itself." Fear limits possibilities and stunts growth. Life is short and our days are never guaranteed. I want to live fully and love fully, with complete abandon. I want to give of myself without the fear of being taken advantage of, or being hurt. I desire a heart full of love rather than a broken, bloody, and discarded one. And I will not settle for anything less. Storms will come. Life will throw a few curve balls every now and then, but its beauty is still able to be seen through the willing eye. I will make it my passion to see it in all things. In the smiles on my children's faces. In their laughter. In the bloom of a delicate rose. In the inevitable wind and rain...and the storms that often accompany it. As the old adage says, "Beauty is all in the eye of the beholder." And if that be true, then I am beholding true beauty. Life. And it's beautiful unpredictability.