{"id":596,"date":"2018-03-13T18:24:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T18:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/?p=596"},"modified":"2018-03-13T18:31:37","modified_gmt":"2018-03-13T18:31:37","slug":"keep-on-the-sunny-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/13\/keep-on-the-sunny-side\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep on the sunny side…"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I loved the quilt Grandma made for me.”\u00a0 I told my mom recently.\u00a0 “I slept with it and the hippo Aunt Karen made me every night.\u00a0 Even through college.”\u00a0 (I tried to sleep with them after I got married too but snuggling up to your own quilt and stuffed animal doesn’t work very well while a newlywed).<\/p>\n

“I wish I still had that quilt.”\u00a0 I said.\u00a0 “Maybe I can find a picture of it in my college photo album.”<\/p>\n

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(If only I could move these boys. I’m certain my quilt is under them.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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Talking about my old quilt lead to conversations about the regret I feel for not having been closer to my Grandma.<\/p>\n

My Aunt Karen was easy to love. She was sunshine and rainbows.\u00a0 Painting ceramics and making homemade suckers. Songs and stories.\u00a0 Advice and unconditional love.\u00a0 And though I would sometimes see her cry when she didn’t know I was watching, and though I know she had a tremendous burden to bear,\u00a0 she was my greatest example on the power of focusing on the positive.<\/p>\n

Grandma Cooper also carried a burden.\u00a0 The burden of worrying about her family.\u00a0 She so badly wanted her family to turn out okay that time spent with her was often filled with lectures and lessons in good old fashioned hard work. Though these interactions didn’t sit well with my young heart, I wish I would have been more like my Aunt Karen and focused on the positive moments.\u00a0 Because we did share many.<\/p>\n

I’ve recently come to realize that there are two truths in almost every situation. While it may have been true that my grandma had an affinity for lectures and labor, she also took me on glorious vacations, cooked me delicious meals and consoled me–telling me I had every right to be angry and that I could stay at her house and be mad as long as I wanted–when I visited her one day afterschool in an attempt to hide from my boyfriend.<\/p>\n

I have learned that my life is filled with these double truths.\u00a0 And while the negative truth seems to serve no productive purpose at all, focusing on the positive truth feels me with joy, understanding, forgiveness and Christ like love.<\/p>\n

This knowing has become a powerful tool for me when negativity threatens to spoil my fun, “That may be true,”\u00a0 I tell my negative narratives, “but so is this.\u00a0 And this, my positive truth, this is what makes me happy.”<\/p>\n

And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou?\u00a0 …where is thy glory, for it is darkness unto me? And I can judge between thee and God;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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“I loved the quilt Grandma made for me.”\u00a0 I told my mom recently.\u00a0 “I slept with it and the hippo Aunt Karen made me every night.\u00a0 Even through college.”\u00a0 (I tried to sleep with them after I got married too but snuggling up to your own quilt and stuffed animal doesn’t work very well while … Continue reading “Keep on the sunny side…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}