{trials}
Today's contributing author is someone I hold in the deepest console of my 4 heart chambers. She is happiest behind the scenes and smiling. She loves her people immensely. Without a doubt, she is one of the most unselfish people I know. Her heart holds your pains as if they were her own.
I trust her with all that I am. I consider her a big part of the best I am becoming from the inside to the out. She is compassion and unbelievable strength. This contributing author is full of bare bones wisdom with a delivery both kind & genuine.
She has lived hard and felt hurt in ways I cannot begin to describe. And through it all...The unimaginable. The unexplainable. The unbearable even. She has offered grace. Time & again. To herself & others.
Currently, she is standing alongside her husband of 32 years as he awaits a heart transplant. With less than 20% of his heart working and in final stages of congestive heart failure, they fight together to maintain his quality of life. In their silliness and comical bantering back and forth, they are nothing short of a sight of strength and hope.
God has given me a forever friend in this woman. A lady who believes whole-heartedly in the person I strive to be. Simply put, she loves you for who you are once. Always. And forever. She is the last to ask for credit for the light she transcends and the load she carries. Her smile & laughter are infectious and can fill a room with such joy. Without further ado, I am honored to introduce to you my mother-in-law, Carlene Samsel.
Having spent many years as a court reporter, I have spent a great many hours in courtrooms during trials of all types, where decisions would be rendered by either a judge or jury after having heard all of the evidence in the cases presented by the plaintiffs and defendants. Some of these trials would be finished in an hour or two and some would go on for days or weeks before a decision was reached, some involving short term benefits or consequences and some having life altering results.
The same is true in the trials of life. We all have trials that we must face and we must choose the way we are going to deal with them and the effect we allow them to have on our life and the lives of the ones we love.
It is my belief that faith and love are the keys to getting through the trials we all must face. I have been blessed to have some inspirational people in my life who have faced and gone through or are currently going through some of the toughest trials imaginable, circumstances that I think might put me in the fetal position in a corner somewhere, yet they face each day leaning on their faith, putting one foot in front of the other, doing what needs to be done and believing that God is in charge and in the end, it will all work out for good.
Rather than having the “Why me, Lord?” attitude, maybe our attitude should be “Why not me?” Perhaps God has allowed these trials in our lives because He believes we are strong enough to handle them in a way that gives Him the glory, or perhaps because there is a lesson we can learn that will somehow touch someone else and give them hope.
