Kindness

First I would like to say through tear stained cheeks how incredibly grateful I am to all who have reached out to me in the last few days.  It has been an amazing blessing that I just cannot adequately describe.  I now wish that I had not waited to long to share. 

But I would like to share today one of the things that brought me to the point of having the courage to write this blog.  Since we moved to Old Orchard Beach a few weeks ago God has been blessing me through perfect strangers.  It seems that every where we have been at the grocery store, on the beach, or just walking down the street perfect strangers have taken a moment to stop me and tell me how wonderful my family is.  One lady at the mall actually stopped me and said your children are beautiful.  She went on and on saying why she thought so in detail and then said to me "good job mom." On that particular day those words meant so much to me to have someone, especially a stranger, notice how hard I was working was incredibily encouraging. 

With the encouragment I was receiving from strangers I started to see my family different from their perspective.  Of course I think my family is wonderful.  We have a lot of problems that we are working on but I love them.  But I assumed that everyone walking by somehow knew our secrets and was looking down on us.

Another amazing thing started happening when I started looking at my family from their perspective.  I started really looking at people as they were walking by and I could just see so much pain.  I started to really realize that everyone is struggling in one way or another.  That maybe they are walking around thinking I am thinking bad things about them. 

When Joe was first arrested I didnt even go to the grocery store for a week because I felt like everyone knew.  I was so embarrassed and ashamed.  Then I realized that most people didnt know and I was determined to keep it that way.  There have been days in the last year when things have been so hard it literally felt hard to take a deep breath.  Not only have we had the relapse & legal issues but our house sold and we had to move.  Joe was in the middle of his court case so we couldnt really leave town.  We were told by the lawyer that the case would definitely be done by July 1st.  Because we knew we wanted to leave Bangor we decided to go camping for the summer until the case was done.  What I didnt realize was that I hate camping :)  Then our car broke and we had no way to get back and forth from the campground to Bangor for court hearings.

But through these amazing people that have taken just a few seconds of their time to encourage us I no longer feel that we are condemded by everyone.  I know it may sound simple but that is really played a big part in finding the courage to write this blog.  I started to think that if strangers thought we were ok then maybe everyone else would too. 

I walked through the same store last week and looked for the lady who spoke such kind words to me and I didnt see her.  Maybe she wasnt working that day or maybe she was an angel sent by God. 

The kindness lavished on me by strangers is more than I can explain.  ~ Ani Difranco