Quotes about marriage
Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~Barnett R. Brickner
More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse. ~Doug Larson
Don’t marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can’t live without. ~Dr. James C. Dobson
Don’t smother each other. No one can grow in shade. ~Leo Buscaglia
What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. ~George Levinger
It’s easy to understand love at first sight, but how do we explain love after two people have been looking at each other for years? ~Author Unknown
Quotes about friendship
Friendship isn’t a big thing- it’s a million little things. ~ Author Unknown
A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half cracked. ~ Author Unknown
A good friend is a connection to life- a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. ~ Lois Wyse
A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should. ~ Author Unknown
A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails. ~ Author Unknown
Some quotes about children that I love
Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
Children are apt to live up to what you believe them to be. ~ Lady Bird Johnson
Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy. ~ Robert Heinlein
Always kiss your children goodnight- even if they’re already asleep. ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr.
To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. ~ Josh Billings
Your children need your presence more than your presents. ~ Jesse Jackson
Don’t worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. ~ Robert Fulghum
If you have never been hated by your child you have never been a parent. ~ Bette Davis
The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look comfortable. ~Lane Olinghouse
Your children tell you casually years later what it would have killed you with worry to know at the time. ~ Mignon McLaughlin
What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give. ~ P.D. James
If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. ~ Haim Ginott
There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it. ~ Chinese Proverb
The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering. ~ Benjamin Spock
Instant availability without continuous presence is probably the best role a mother can play ~ Lotte Bailyn
A child, like your stomach, doesn’t need all you can afford to give it. ~ Frank A. Clark
You have a lifetime to work, but children are only young once. ~ Polish Proverb
Adoption is when a child grew in its mommy’s heart instead of her tummy. ~ Author Unknown
Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons. ~ Author Unknown
I’d give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life’s decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer day.
~Lewis Carroll, “Solitude”
The older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has to give. ~ Ellen Glasgow
Me and my boundaries
The American Heritage Dictionary defines
boundaries as:
1. Something that indicates a border or a limit
2. The border or limit so indicated.
I am presently in a struggle with boundaries. Personal, emotional, self-induced boundaries. Where do I draw the border? What is my limit? Where is the place that I will not let people cross?
As a kid I remember myself really being “boundary-free”. Oh, I don’t mean that my parents didn’t have rules and expectations. They did…in fact there were plenty. But they were the ones that decided what they were and they were the ones that enforced them. By “boundary-free” I mean that I was emotionally without limits or boundaries. I had so much trust and faith in people that I didn’t fear that I had to set a border or limit to keep myself from getting hurt. I didn’t have to consciously think “will this person take advantage of me” in a given situation. I guess you figure out what the idea and need of boundaries are as you get older. Being a pleaser for the majority of my life, I tended to let other people decide the boundaries for me. I will do what I have to do to please you and as long as you are pleased, there is really no need for a boundary.
Well, life has now seemed to teach me otherwise. I have finally and “painfully” realized that I really can’t please everyone. No, I mean really. Believe me, I really thought in my heart of hearts that I could do it. Some how, some way, I could make anybody and everybody happy with me. I have now at thirty-some years old met my match. It does not matter what I do, how much I do and if I do it standing on my head singing the Greek alphabet backwards…I can not please them. It has just killed me. I have thought, “What is wrong with this person”? “Do they not see how hard I am trying”? “Maybe, if I try it this way”. “Nope that still doesn’t get it”. Whatever I do and however I do it, it will never be enough. I can not PLEASE them.
So, what is a pleaser who has never had to set boundaries before to do? Well, I either have to set myself some personal, emotional boundaries or I can be crushed to what feels like death. I now have to decide what the border is. I now have to decide what is my limit. I have to decide the place that I will not let people cross.
Wish me luck, because this is going to be a tough one.
Congratulations Kristin!
So, my sister-in-law graduated from Nursing School this weekend. Big Event! It has been ten years in the making and she finally reached her goal. She is five years younger than I am, but in the last ten years I have learned an awful lot from her. As I watched her receive her nursing pin and diploma this weekend, I couldn’t help but think of the deep determination it took her to get to this moment.
I began to wonder about myself. Knowing that I do not possess that kind of determination, I wondered why. Why can one person set a goal and absolutely nothing will keep them from achieving it- no matter how long it takes? While others, (like myself) give up when the going gets hard? There were times in the last ten years when I would think to myself, why doesn’t she just be happy with her LPN job and quit putting herself through the stress of nursing school? When she would have to take a class more than once, I would wonder why is she doing this to herself?
Well, I find out why this weekend. I saw a look of pure happiness, bliss and accomplishment that I have not seen on her face in the twelve years that I have known her. At that moment, it all made perfect sense. She stuck with it for this moment right here, for whatever it was she was feeling inside right then, made all of the difficulties worth it. And I must admit, as one who tends to turn and run when the going gets tough…I was a little jealous.
I am so proud of her and the example that she sets for her nieces and nephews. I also know that she is going to be one heck of a nurse, because there cannot be anyone who as worked harder to become one. I love you sister and I am so proud of you I could just burst!
What is the silver lining?
I thought I would try to answer the question to why my blog is called “Finding the silver lining.” Well, there are a couple of different reasons I guess. One who did not know me might think that I am an optimist that always sees the good in every situation (not quite). Another might think that maybe I have difficulty facing the reality of a difficut situation so I just try to find something good in it (that might be closer). Really it is something that I have to make myself strive to do. I find it very easy to encourage and affirm others. I find it almost impossible to do with myself. So, I guess it is a goal of sorts. It is a recognition of something that I need to work towards. “Finding the silver lining”.
Life can just be really crappy sometimes. Like today for instance. I am just in a really crappy mood. Not for any particular reason, but what seems like a thousand little reasons. “Finding the silver lining” has not been easy today. In fact, I have not really tried to find it, I have just been kind of satisfied in my state of “this day stinks” mode. So, I come to my blog and am reminded that I have a ”silver lining” to find.
What is a “silver lining” exactly? Is it the reason for why things happen to us? Does it offer us some sort of comfort in knowing that everything has a purpose, a point, a reason in the end? Does it encourage us to keep our heads up looking for it, when otherwise we would be so bent over and discouraged that we would miss something? And why is it silver? Why not “finding the gold lining”? or the “garnet” or the by all means the “diamond lining”. I would not take my eyes off of it if the lining was diamond!! 
For me, as a Christian, it is another way of recognizing that “All things work together for good, for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpse”. The “good” is the silver lining. The adventure in life is being aware enough to find it. The true adventure is finding it and learning from it the first time.
I don’t believe that we can always “find the silver lining”, at least not in this lifetime anyway. We will not always have the answers to why things happen to us, why we are given what we are given, or why sometimes what we are given is taken away. I think that we can find purpose, reason, explanation, or “the point” in some things. But, I think that in many other circumstances we will just never know. I suppose that is why this blog is called “Finding the silver lining and not I FOUND the silver lining”. It is a constant mindset of looking for good in all of the situations that we find ourselves in. I know that it is a struggle for me, but it is also the thing that encourages me to keep at it.
