The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
When my family was deep in a heart breaking addiction crisis, I hated who I was.
I felt like a 100 percent failure as a mother to my son, who was struggling with this family systems-disease, and to the rest of my family of my husband and three daughters.
That sense of failure permeated just about every cell in my body.
From the outside it was hard to tell that sense of failure was wrapped around me like a burial cloth. I showed up for work, for commitments and for all the good things that made up life. I also showed up for the hard stuff, too.
And there was a lot of hard stuff.
My spirit was beaten down by the disease that was impacting every member of my cherished family.
Ironically, I had been in recovery for almost two decades. But even my own personal understanding of the progressive symptoms of the disease including fear, isolation, low self-esteem, acting out, anger, shame, secrecy and sadness didn’t help me very much.
It took me a long time – with a lot of help from God, prayer and loving outside sources of help – to realize that my sense of brokenness was in fact the rock-solid foundation of something new and better.
And that foundation of new and better was the beauty and wisdom born through hardship and through falling down repeatedly and getting up back up again.
Beautiful people do not just happen.
Every member of my beloved family: my son, daughters and my husband experienced this also.
They are beautiful people.
As a family unit together, and as individuals struggling through the ramifications of the systems illness of addiction, we came to understand the power of compassion and loving concern that grows in the hearts of those who have faced this.
My son, one of my daughters, and myself have taken that foundation as a vocational call to work in the recovery field. The rest of our family also shares their deep compassion and understanding of this pernicious disease with others in a less formalized way.
Any family touched by this illness knows the strength of personal beauty born of their struggle. And that beauty is a powerful force to help others become overcomers.
How has your family’s struggle with addiction created the strength and wisdom of beautiful people?
How has this beauty molded your life choices?
Please share here. We can all be inspired by our shared experience, strength and hope.
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