Life: An Acquired Taste

Thanksgiving has always been a time of reflection for me. This year, I realized how much I have to be thankful for. It's been a year since my last knee surgery and everything has been successful so far. I have taken time over the last several days and today to look back on those long days and months after the surgery. I truly don’t know how I made it through. I have never experienced such pain or such love as I did throughout this process. God has a way of teaching us things that we don't necessarily want to learn. I did not enjoy it and I hope to never go through something like this again; however, because of His love and mercy, I am able to sit here and say I am truly thankful for this list of things He taught me over the last year. God’s grace is sufficient I am not in control I am not alone Even the expected can be unexpected You never do run out of tears, believe me, I know I do not have an “end of the rope” There is always a little bit of strength left Doctors...

I honestly sat down to write about my 2017. As I sat contemplating it, I scrolled through social media and read everyone’s thoughts on their year. One thought gave me reason to rethink adding my thoughts into the puddle of social media. Why was I going to do it? What was my motivation? To compare how seemingly rough my year was to others’. Instead of giving you a straight overview of my year, I’m going to share a struggle that I think we all face. Comparison runs rampant during this time and age. Laptops, Ipads, smart phones, and smart watches give us access to the internet, social media, online shopping, fitness gurus, and so much more. All of it is as close as our fingertips. There are a million different ways to filter and photoshop a picture. We re-write a caption over and over until it is witty and funny, but doesn’t sound like we are trying too hard. Nothing gets posted until it has been polished to perfection. Why? Because we want to put up a front of how we want others ...