Web Wisdom™: tidbits of info I find on the web and wish to share!
Reposted with permission from ByTheSpirit.net:

I recently contributed this piece to ByTheSpirit.net. Let’s start making room and gathering flowers of wisdom today!

Guided by the Spirit: Make Room for Living and Gather Life Lessons Like Flowers by Tonya M. Evans

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. ~ Pema Chodron

The quote above by Pema Chodron is titled “Letting There Be Room”. Her spiritual guidance serves as a beautiful and poignant reminder that when it all comes down to it, life isn’t something that happens to you; life happens for you (for your healing). And, ultimately, life just happens.

The joy and the pain, just happens. The love and the loss, just happens. The victory and the testing; it all just happens — not because of who you are (or aren’t) or what you’ve done (or haven’t); at least not primarily.

To be sure, we make choices and experience the consequences of those choices. But all of the choices and consequences are a part of life’s journey. And we travel not to reach some specific destination but to pick life lessons like flowers lining our life path. And then one day to pause and admire with gratitude the beautiful bouquet of life experience we’ve gathered along the way.

This imagery conjures up something my Nana always used to say during her glorious life journey:

“Give me my flowers while I’m living.”

We certainly did give her flowers for every occasion and for no particular reason at all. But those words take on new meaning as I think of gathering life experiences like flowers. If rephrased as a prayer request it might read:

“God please give me the necessary experiences and lessons so that I may live fully, authentically, abundantly, with purpose and on purpose and so that I am healed.”

No one passes through this life without the experience of living. The depth, richness and brightness of our life is determined, however, by how willing we are to keep moving forward, to keep gathering, to keep making room for more living and healing. Only by living richly can we gather more flowers cleverly disguised as victories and testings along the way. We are not immune from the harsh realities of life but, thankfully, we are protected and, if we surrender, guided by the One who created us.

Our ultimate Guide through the rise and fall of life’s tide is the Creator of life itself. When we make room for living we make room for the continuous process of healing; again and again every time life comes together and — most assuredly — falls apart.

About ByTheSpirit.net: By The Spirit™ is a spirit-led project envisioned by four women who were brought together by friendship and family ties and who share a collective vision to help others realize their best selves. Each woman’s passion and focus on helping others live a full life was readily apparent in their creative and professional projects. From this awareness, they came up with four approaches to actualizing a life of purpose: Speaking, Shining, Living and Giving.