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I am a storyteller and while I love to regale those I meet with my stories I also enjoy revisiting them as well.  Hopefully those that hear them enjoy them as much as I do.

There are two kinds of emotional memories – the positive and the not so positive or what I like to call the emotional adversity memories

The positive ones:

• Good – savor them, remembering as much detail as you can. Color, sounds, smells, visions, how you felt.  Maybe the day you got married.
• All your good memories are an invaluable part of the process because it grounds and secures the memories
• The feeling is soo good – it’s like coming home and it’s a piece of ourselves
• Take time to remember all the details of the good memories because its pleasurable.

Negative emotional memories

If you don’t want to spent time on the challenging memories – don’t.  Let them go. Let them float up and away.

If you do want to spend time with challenging times

• Acknowledge the emotion. (“It was hard”,” I don’t know how I got through it”.  Revisit it and feel it.
• Move forward – put it in perspective in your wider life story. It might be an important part of your story but is still a part of something bigger, right?
• Be careful, remember but again, remember its part of something bigger. Don’t get stuck in the past.
• Remember challenging things create strength just as much as the positive memories do.

People in this world will suffer.  I have and will suffer.  You have and will suffer.  Our suffering can produce emotional scars if we let it.  But your suffering can also build endurance.  And endurance can even produce character.  And those of us who have Christ in our lives know that character produces hope.  Through Christ’s death on the cross we have hope.  And God through His son tells us that every emotional scar, every suffering is not wasted.  While during the time we cannot fathom why we suffer or what purpose God has for it but we must remind ourselves that –

Suffering produces perseverance

Perseverance produces character

And character produces hope.

With God in our hearts we know that with every pain, suffering, and even death, the Holy Spirit knows your suffering and through God’s work He is turning the suffering into hope.  That is the promise we have.

 “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  Romans 5:3-5

Whatever darkness you are feeling right now, know that you have the promise of God that your darkness will become your hope in eternity with Him.

What challenges have you felt and how have they made you stronger?  What steps did you take to go from seeing the negative to the positive?  How did you come from feeling stressed to blessed during your suffering?  Please join in the conversation so others may benefit.

Source:  Aging with Dignity at www.agingwithdignity.org

Thank you for reading my post.  If you have found it encouraging please consider liking, commenting or sharing it.  Feel free to even re-blog – may these words take flight!

I have additional insights I’d love to share with you found in the pages of my debut book: Surviving Medical Mayhem – Laughing When It Hurts.  To order a copy or learn more go to my website at www.lorettaschoen.com

Blessings for Health & Wellness.

Loretta