Her Broken Halo

So much of everything I think and feel about things in life is a reflection of my Meme.  She taught me everything.  She taught me to read, everything about God and the Bible (in the true Southern Baptist ideals of course) and that it was a good idea to follow the Ten Commandments, simply because they were all good ideas, whether we have proof of God or not.  She taught me to be a good student, to cook and to work hard, because that woman, Lord did she have a list of chores for us all!
She also taught me that no matter how wonderful a person is to us in our minds, we are all humans.  We all sin, suffer, fail and most of us are broken in some way.  It is these things about each other that we should cherish and celebrate. We should not despise or judge others for sinning differently than we do.
She was my savior also.  She took me in when my folks gave me away.  She was an angel to me.  In my coming of age years, I discovered just how really human she was, and I became very angry with her.  I will not discuss all of her mistakes because those are very private situations that need not be shared with the world.  However, to me, they were unforgivable.
I look back on so much of my life at this point and realize so much has been guided by anger.  This anger that has infected my soul for so long has become too much of a burden to carry.  Meme has always said that everything happens for a reason, and for every season there is a change.  (That is my next blog topic.) Dare I say that since my sister died, I can be so much more honest with myself.  I am not sure why this is the case.  Maybe my broken heart let loose all that grief and anger.  I can't explain it, but I am glad.  I feel as though a weight has been lifted, and I am free to love again.  I forgive so much easier, am far less quick to judge anyone (like I have any room to talk anyway) and am just grateful for my life every single day.
I have heard countless times that you pay for your raising.  I find this to be true, now, more than ever.   I was raised to love and be loved.  Thank God my for my angel with a broken halo. 

Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!

Today I read an article about all of the posts we make on social media, specifically Facebook (FB).  The lady in the article posted three pictures of herself and her family.  They were all happy and smiling together.  She went on to say that while these pictures painted a beautiful picture of her family, they were basically a lie.  The pictures did not show the fight she had gotten into with her husband earlier that day, and the other one did not show that she was deeply sad about the fact that she had been wait-listed by her adoption agency.  She said we need to stop only showing the world the positive aspects of our lives, while leaving out the negative.  I am going to have to strongly disagree.  We are not all liars, we just all do not find it necessary to air our dirty laundry on social media.

Social media is a slippery slope to begin with.  It allows people to monitor our moods, movements, accomplishments and every other aspect of our life that we choose to share.  In my hometown of Covington, TN, our beloved Fire Chief was recently forced to resign for posting his personal opinion on FB.  In my opinion, this was completely ludicrous.  An entire lifetime of work resulted in a negative ending, all due to FB.

So based on this example, I say let's keep it positive people!  If I pull up FB and see that one of my friends is always being Negative Ned or Negative Nancy, they will quickly become unfriended.  Sure, all aspects of life have negative sides.  Good and bad things happen every single day to everyone.  I think you should keep all that negative crap to yourself, because I certainly do not want to hear it.  Like my Meme always used to say, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."