Remember This

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