How do you start writing your story when you don’t know where to start?
Simple…start at the beginning…
Once upon a time…but wait this isn’t a fairy tale, this is my story, my journey.

During a difficult period in my life, Diane suggested creating a “symbolic” reminder, a touchstone, to remind me what I had been through.
Diane put me in touch with Wendy, a wonderful lady who “glows with God”, she paints on stones, so I commissioned her to paint this stone.

This stone has special meaning to me, I knew I wanted a rainbow on the top half, and stormy clouds on the bottom half, based on this scripture:

“Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
Genesis 9:16 New International Version (NIV)

Usually when Wendy paints on the stones, she puts a quote on the front, and a relating scripture on the back of the stone.

I decided I simply wanted two words: Remember Me.
My God had shown me, that He had brought me through it, and that He was there with me through it all.

“We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”
“We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury

I realised that there were ‘blessings’, things for me to learn and grow from, in the ‘rainbows’ and in the ‘clouds’.

“‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops,
What if Your healing comes through tears”.
“What if trials of this life,
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights,
Are your mercies in disguise”.
“Blessings” by Laura Story

There are different types of loss…

Loss of a friendship, dreams, trust, security, innocence, normality…

Loss of a loved one, a marriage, physical loss, emotional loss, spiritual loss…

I’ve been through many of these over the last few years…and through each loss I’ve realised that I have gone/or am still going through grief over each one.

The five stages of grief are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

“We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, oh no! We’ve got to go through it!”
(We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury)

Grief is a journey, in life you will suffer loss…but it is what you do with that loss, that determines whether you let the loss, help you to become lost…

In the past I have let my loss and grief get to me, and parts of me did become lost.

What was the turning point for me?

When I realised I had a choice. And only I could make that choice. No one else could make it for me.

The choice was to hold on to the loss and grief, or let it go, give it to my God, and hold onto hope & life.

I don’t want to be lost anymore, I want to find me again, or should I say the new me.

Because after going through loss & grief…you are changed…you are a different you, neither good nor bad, just different.

“When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

Loss is a teachable moment in our lives…what are we going to learn from it?