This is the part where I learn what I'm *really* made of

It is only when we are tried, that we learn what we're made of.

That's the point I'm at and have been for awhile. Frustrating me and angering me--enough already!-- but I know that, like gold I am truly being refined. There are parts of my personality that do not serve me, or the world. I have to transform them.

So it's back to me. I can choose to take this opportunity to learn what I need to and become someone a nth much better. But I don't have to. Life doesn't care; it'll just flunk me and give me another lesson another time. But I don't want to flunk or do summer school. I want to graduate!

It always ends up back at me. What I choose to do is what I ultimately choose to become.

------------------

I didn't have this perspective earlier, not until I opened my mailbox and found this message from a member of a group I belong to: (Life often throws you the rope--you just gotta hang onto it)

The way forward
+++++++++++++++++++

Sometimes the world appears to be spinning out of control.
Sometimes there seems to be no end to the distressing news.

Sometimes it feels like troubles are being piled on top of
troubles. Sometimes it can look as if there could never be a
way forward.

And yet, that way forward is always as close as your next
thought. For no matter how difficult and discouraging life
may have become, with each dawning moment, a new world of
positive possibilities opens up to you.

From the darkest depths of despair, hope does indeed grow
and take flight. Out of difficult situations, new strategies
emerge for creating real value and spreading life's
goodness.

Remember that the future does not have to be an extension of
the past. For you can act right now to create that future
out of the abundance of positive possibilities.

Life always has its challenges, and those challenges are
what enable you to bring real value to life. Whatever the
circumstance, step boldly forward and choose to move the
world positively ahead.

Ralph Marston