As I reflect on the past few days of my life, while on a very real adventure with an illness I manage, I realize that it is mostly through the sorrow and the testing I endure, that my character is built. I am seeing a difference in the way that I cope with any serious issue these days, from the ways I have failed to cope in years past. In this knowing, I can eventually find the calm in the eye of the storm.

However, as we grow in life,----is as we go in life; and the sheer living often becomes the overwhelming task, much more than the figuring we do, or the dramas with which we become involved.

I can’t honestly say that I would always want to be here, if I didn’t believe in a loving form who will welcome me into loving arms somewhere beyond all this. So I live. I write as I always have. I write what I know for the people of my world. The seeds planted well will scatter, and find their own fitting destinations; as it should be.

I have lived it through the years, so I know, that sorrow and joy are akin to one another. We cannot have one without experiencing the other in due season. CS. Lewis so brilliantly stated this in all his writings. And, I believe that it is within this circle of life, this pattern of being, where our souls touch the very essence of the "whys" that we beg for answers to.

As the great author so well stated, we are not always here to be comfortable, or comforted, or to even be loved by others.

And in my own words, we are here to strive; to dream; to believe; we are here to love others in ways that we would like to be loved. We stay because we hope...In purest form; a hope that makes us most worthwhile. We are here to learn and teach, in service to a greater purpose for mankind than just ourselves. The purpose serves us well, and will serve us well in times to come.

As the circle always goes, I wait for the joy to come once again.