Happy Through Trials: A Woman Shares 3 Little Known Ways to Stay Positive During Trials

This next post is so amazing.  I was lucky enough to meet Jamie at a blog conference in February this year.  We happened to sit down together at breakfast and I'm so glad I did.  I was immediately drawn to her blog and I knew I wanted her to be a part of this series.  Thankfully she said yes.  She is amazing and gives some amazing advice! 

As a child, I looked forward to being "off-track" so I could spend the majority of my 3-week break stay with my beloved grandma and grandpa.  One particular stay when I was 9-10 years old, I woke up from a little afternoon siesta and walked into the kitchen. My grandma was sitting in her normal spot at the kitchen table, reading her bible, and crying softly. When I asked her why she was crying, she told me her heart was heavy today.  It was the day my sister passed away several years ago. Lindsay passed away before I was born when she was 14 months old.

My grandma wept not only for the loss of Lindsay, but she wept for my mother's (her daughter) pain. I made a comment about how unfair it was that my parent's had to endure the loss of their child. My grandma began talking about the trials of life and told me this that has stayed with me 20 years later.

"I believe when we come to this world, we are handed a manila envelope (it had to be manila, I asked her) and inside are the pages/transcript of our life. Some of us are given more pages than others, and some of these pages are filled with sadness, pain, and suffering. It is up to us to create something beautiful with our stories."

One of the last pictures of me and my grandmother, who passed away in 2010. She was my cheerleader and my number one fan. I look to her in my moments of darkness. She managed type 1 diabetes for 55 years and I never heard her complain once.

At 14 years old, I found out that my 'manila envelope' was stuffed full. A life-changing event made my teenage years even more emotionally tumultuous and depression consumed me. At 16, I was in my first major car accident. It was around this time that I began having horrific back pain that didn't go away with rest. I chalked it up to the car accident. At 17, I had my heart broken for the first time. Dealing with immense physical and emotional pain, I found solace in drugs, alcohol, and smoking heavily. I went from a 3.9 GPA and scholarship opportunities to not caring and failing classes. I could sleep 23 hours a day and never come out of my room. I wallowed in self-pity and my relationships suffered. For the next couple of years, I wandered aimlessly and partied hard.