A few years back, right after we moved into this house, one of our neighbors was in a horrific accident involving a horse that escaped.  It was late at night and the animal, under the influence of some medical issue, had escaped from his pen and ran straight toward the road where it ran headlong into this guy’s truck.  The driver had to be airlifted to get help and he died 13 times over the course of his recovery.  It was a long journey for him—but he survived.  My friend hadn’t heard the full extent of this story and through the course of her business, she met his wife (again, not knowing who he was) so this gentleman came to my friend’s house to pick up his dog.  I didn’t get detail on how the conversation started or how the subject was broached, but he ended up saying he was sort of famous around here because of his accident…and that the biggest lesson he has learned is to just keep going.  He said he didn’t know why God kept him alive, but he knows he has to keep going.  And that is the truth.  In so many circumstances, what else can we do but keep going?  There are always issues in this world, always problems we have to surpass—but there are certain circumstances in life that are beyond explanation and can only be felt to understand…to be brought back to life from death is a powerful message of purpose.  And his purpose in that moment with my friend was to tell her to keep going.  She needed the reminder in the midst of the stress she was feeling, and it needed to be him to give it to her.  And the really interesting part is that she was the one to give it to me.

I wrote about forgetting blessings in the middle of stressing and it’s a difficult emotion to explain—it’s not like I forget that I’m blessed, truly.  I don’t ever mean to come across as an entitled brat because I am well aware of the issues in the world and the opportunities I’ve been afforded.  My losses, stresses, and traumas are no different than others.  In some cases they are insignificant and in others they would make people feel glad it wasn’t theirs.  But we do get caught up in where we are, no matter what it is—we are human and that happens.  It’s easy to look at what is causing stress for us in the moment and lose sight of the bigger picture because that is what is in our reality right now. For as open minded as we are, we can have a limited view when we need to deal with what is in our reality.  And the universe will send us the reminders we need to bring things back into perspective for us.  When we let emotion overwhelm us we forget where we are.  I’ve been lost in emotion many times—and that usually seems to be the place the universe offers the most humbling of lessons.  Like…you can be freaking out and feeling absolutely inundated with emotion and all of a sudden it will all click into place and everything is fine…or something will happen (like hearing this guy’s story) to remind us that what we are going through isn’t so bad.