Monuments

When I was a little girl, I read a book called Charlie's Monument. The story has kindof left me but not the poem in the beginning.

It goes like this

God,
before He sent his children to earth,
gave each of them a carefully selected package
Of problems.
These,
He promised smiling,
Are yours alone,
No one else may have the blessings
These problems will bring to you
And only you
Have the special talents and abilities
That will be needed
To make these problems your servants.
Now Go down to your birth
And to Your forgetfulness.
Know that I love you beyond measure.
These problems that I give you
Are a symbol of that love
The monument you make of your life
with the help of your problems
Will be a symbol of your love for me.

Your Father

I don't know why that poem has stuck with me for so many years... but I do know for certain that we all face very specific and unique challenges.

And most of the challenges that we face are unknown to even those very close to us.

I wish I could say that I have been ready or prepared for my challenges. But the truth is, that I have not. They have hit me like a ton of bricks. Blindsided me and stole my breath away.

They have surprised me.

The truth is. None of them are featured subjects in my blog posts. We all have things we want to share and things we simply don't. The challenges I can laugh at and poke fun... I like to share. I have plenty of those. But there are those challenges that are just too personal and too painful to occupy any space in the blog and so they don't.

My head is where I try to make sense of them. To analyze what they mean and why they are my lot. And most of the time. I don't make any sense of them.

And that's when I remember this poem. I think that I have repeated it in my head so much that it has become very familiar to me. And very comforting.

I think that when I was younger I liked to maybe rank things. Put them in order or decide some people had more challenges than others. This is true to some extent. I know this. I know it when I give chemo to someone with gaunt, tired eyes and hair just growing back in. Or when I see pictures of suffering from the 2nd World War. I know that I probably won't ever know challenges of the latter magnitude... (I hope). But in some way or another we all face challenges. No one gets out of life without them.

So I'm trying harder not to rank my life next to others or compare challenges and I would hope that this is a lesson others are learning.

It's tempting to say to ourselves, "They don't really know, or they have it so easy"... when I think the reality is that we all have something.. and those somethings aren't always readily apparant from the outside.

When we do experience a challenge.. we develop empathy for others in similar situations. As "expert sufferers" we can guide others through the challenge or at least be extra sympathetic. But I guess that proves how selfish we can be. It's easy to feel empathy when we can relate but not so easy to find empathy when a challenge is something completely outside our realm of experience.

The phrase that gives me the most comfort in the poem is "carefully selected package of problems". There are so many times when I say to myself, "Why this?" or "Why Me?" .. I'm not up to this one.. Anything but this...

And then I think of this poem and it somehow puts it into perspective and gives it some meaning.

I know of people that pray for problems... so that they can grow.

But I am not one of them. I have never prayed to have a particular problem nor will I ever. I like things nice and boring and normal.

Because sometimes that is hard enough.

I can only imagine what would happen if I was praying for challenges!!!!

Anyway... That is my rambling for the day.


I don't know if my life will be any sort of a monument.

But I am thankful for it... Challenges and all.

Happy photo... Unrelated to Post