It is so easy to put a label on ourselves or even define ourselves by the condition or circumstance that we are going through. When we were in the homeless shelter I worked hard to not be defined by that circumstance. I did my best to not have many people know what I was going through. It was not necessarily because I was ashamed.It was more because I felt like the more people knew that the situation could be used as an anchor to weigh me down instead of a stepping stone to allow me to climb higher.
At that time I had no car, we had to catch the bus to drop the girls off at school and then I had to take another bus to work. Many people knew we rode the bus, but what they did not know was that we woke up at 5 am to start our day so that I could get to work by 8 am. And even after I got off work at 5 pm we would not get back to the shelter until after 8 pm each night. We did this routine for 6 months with a limited amount of people knowing.
Another reason not that many people knew was I never wanted anyone to feel sorry for us or to make assumptions about our situation. We can allow our circumstances to define us or to refine us. I decided to allow it to refine me. The homeless shelter era in my life does have some negative notes but it is a very strong foundation. It is where we began to rebuild our lives and have a clean slate to make our lives whatever we wanted to be instead of allowing the homeless shelter to decide what our destination in life was.
Take Care Much Love
