the power of ONE and the power of a COMMUNITY brings out the LOVE

I am so overwhelmed with the Christmas spirit and all this deep, gut wrenching faith that I feel that I haven't felt in a LONG time. Right now I KNOW that my house was MEANT to catch on fire! I don't have it all figured out or all the answers but right now I will tell you the things I do know.

I AM LOVED: you see I have always had this awesome family and I love them and brag about them and they have gotten me through so many times I have lost count and because of this amazing family I never had any real reason to look outside of my family to the community for any reason. I have always loved the town I grew up in, its home to me but I never felt this sense of community.......until the last few days. Sometimes stuff happens and it is unimaginable and bigger than you and at first you are just MAD, I mean real deep down ticked off, so ticked off all you can do is cry cause that just seems like the only thing left to do. But then.....this makeover happens on your heart and you didn't even know your heart was in need of one. The aftermath of a fire is something so blindsiding its hard to describe. I do ok and I feel ok and then I walk in there to try to find some Tylenol or something and I just get sad and mad, but I allow myself to accept those feelings and face them and it opens yourself up to a change you didn't know you needed.

I needed to realize the power of a community, the power of a small deed and when small deeds turn into big deeds. You see I have always believed people are good, at every ones core, they ARE good, and I love people...seriously! But I never had this knowledge in my own life that peoples goodness comes out when you need it to. Even typing this it sounds as if I were a hard, cold blooded person, and that's not the case, all the time people DO good stuff, I just have never seen it first hand. My HEAD knew that out there, there is a whole lotta people who love me, but my HEART needed reminded. See I have learned all too painfully the last 3 months that actions speak louder than words and words only go so far. So I stopped believing the words, which started to make my heart not as full of love as it once was.....which is why I needed this fire. I needed a sign to make me wake up.....God knew I was feeling lost and scared and alone in the deepest sense of alone....and I wouldn't have admitted it but a part of my was dying...this good part of me that I love...and I am stubborn and God knows this. So He knew that I needed a big reminder of GOOD, the GOOD that is out there from strangers. So my house caught on fire, for no physical reason any of us our sure of....but I am sure now that PEOPLE have a POWER they don't know they have. I hope I am making sense, I am so overcome, and my tears are falling so freely....I hope I can convey this renewed sense of LOVE you have all awakened me too.

These sweet beautiful people I know and don't know all got together through the power of this ONE WOMAN and her amazing family and they brought back a piece of me I didn't know I needed back. Never doubt the power of one, for this ONE woman has had the most profound affect on my life. I consider her a 'mentor' if you will, of how to be brave and how to love, how to help, how to allow your art to flow through you and how to share that with others, a mentor of the kind of 'artsy, brave girl' I want to be when I grow up. Tonight this One and Her family brought the love, the gifts, the things for the kids, crowns and bravery to me; it all means so much and through these necessary material things I learned a necessary spiritual thing. I didn't know people would love me like this if I admitted I was vulnerable. But you DO love me and through YOUR love I was able to recognize that HE hasn't forgot about me and that HE still LOVES ME, even though I am vulnerable and I do screw up...quite a lot actually- I screw it up. This One told me in a team meeting once that 'its the really good ones who have to go through a lot to bring out that really good'. And that has always stuck with me; so it has been easier to accept my trials because I want to be a really good one so I stand up and move past these trials so I can be a good one. I know whatever I am going through will make me the BRAVE, strong, smart girl I wanna be. I wanna change the world, I want to inspire and love and lift up others. And in order to do that I have to be able to inspire, love and lift myself up and I know that going through yucky stuff to reach these aha moments is what its going to take.

So my loved ones, those of you I have meant and those I haven't.....THANK YOU a MILLION times over.............for the lesson in LOVE and helping me through this yucky thing. I want to pay it forward and share this LOVE that is consuming me......I love my community and the POWER of your kindness. Thank you for saving me and loving me this Christmas season.

Much LOVE!

XOXO~S