Butterfly Parable Redux

Today in Relief Society (Women's meeting of the LDS church), we had a lesson on trials and resilience.

Oh, did I have much I wanted to say, but I wasn't the teacher and I didn't want to take over the lesson.

The instructor referred to the Parable of the Butterfly (as I call it), which I wrote about on May 11, 2006). I thought about this and I also thought a lot about the things I've been through in my lifetime. I choose not to talk about them now, but have referred to them in some way in the past, and will continue to do so. It's a part of me now.

I remember being seriously asked once, "how do you stay so strong?" Well, the first thing I want to say is that I just fake it well. When I control that impulse and actually took some time to think about it, I realized the reason that I have been strong is because I really know no other way. That is option #1. Option #2 is do it anyway.

Sure, things have beaten me down and I'm not exactly cheerfully submissive when it happens, but each thing I've gone through has made me stronger to the point where I can do things I only imagined when I started this blog, or even further back than that.