The wisdom to know the difference

"I'm not like you," she said.  "My memories are all bad".

I thought about it for a while. 

Are my memories all good?

Hum.  I remembered that when my first husband and I were going to get a divorce I could only remember the GOOD memories.  That made it more painful.  I was grieving what was good and I forgot that there had, of course, been some bad.

Strange as this may seem, I prayed and asked God to help me remember the bad and when I did..."oh help"...what a time I experienced.  Not pretty.

But by and by the memories leveled out.  Things that I remembered in a bad light became the springboard for me to change something.  Somehow through that process as well as many other times of reacting and transitioning into a different phase in my life I learned to see the good in bad situations.

Early in the "losing my husband" through divorce stage a friend gave me the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, another friend gave me How to Survive the Loss of a Love and someone else shared For Those Who Hurt.  All three of those books have remained a part of my library - now for more than 33 years.

Those books plus lots of prayer and support have been helpful - more than once in my life.  The words and actions of my friends have been a comfort.  The love and involvement in the lives of my children by family were paramount in the Christ-honoring  lives that I see them living today.

I needed the serenity to accept the loss of one husband to divorce and another to death.  I could not change the circumstances.  I needed the serenity to accept the fact that I had made many mistakes in both cases and I could not go back and re-do what I had done.  I needed to be forgiven and I needed to forgive myself.

So yes I have some bad memories.  Am I being a Pollyanna?  Worse than that - Am I being dishonest? 

Well actually what I am doing is practicing what my mother said her mother taught her "You don't have to put all your dirty laundry on the line."

Just know that what I try to practice is having the wisdom to know the difference!