True Grits | 90 Second Reflection for Facing Tough Times | by Susan H. Evans | Inspiring Story #108

My sister shakes her head and sighs, "I don't know. The world's an awfully sad place." She maybe thinks of her husband on the couch with a respirator covering his face, or Mama's sad little neighbor battling cancer, or our nieces' alcoholism and drug abuse.

Sitting on her glider, we look out onto her shady front yard. At the corner, children laugh and squeal and play at a daycare. A bird builds its nest in her mimosa tree.

I think about what Sandy says.  "Well, that is true, but don't you think the sadness can be transcended and transformed? Don't we get to write our own stories? I know I get to be the heroine in mine. What about you?"

She answers, "Yes." She brightens noticeably and sits up a little straighter.

"I think if you frame your life and those people's lives around you as "sad," then, life is sad. But if you frame your life as opportunities for you and others to grow in grace, faith, courage, endurance, and love, then life isn't about sadness and defeat, but about transcendence and triumph."

I don't intend to let this temporary existence lasso and wrestle me to the ground like a dogie at a rodeo. No, life will not make me say "Uncle." I refuse to be a little shrinking violet wilting under a hopeless sun, or a woe-is-me where's- the-Tylenol type of woman.

As a Southern, I want to hold on to my True Grits, and I don't want them easy on the side. I want a big heaping ladle of them in the middle of my plate.

I wrote this piece several years ago, and just recently lost my mother. Re-reading this  reflection made me feel better, so I hope it encourages another reader too