Steak for the Soul — Struggle

What's the band-aid for a broken home? Once all the hearts are broken and all the dreams shattered, what's left to put the pieces back together? I've been looking for some time now, trying to find the answer to that question. I haven't found it yet. All I can think to do is love. Endlessly, tirelessly, unconditionally. Love what is broken with the hope that love itself may eventually be the glue.

So many days I find myself wrapped up in my own struggle, my own issues, my overwhelmingly meaningless whatever problem of the moment. It's natural, because it's real, it's immediate, it's what's in front of me. But in the midst of my mess, I can usually find a single moment where for a brief second I can close my eyes, step out of my own shoes with all the muck they carry, and fill the soles of someone else's.   For the life of me I can't remember this boy’s name, all I remember his story. We trekked for hours...

Every day you allow yourself to care about someone else's opinion of you is a day you stay bound by the very chains they wish to put upon you. For if freedom is the absence of chains, then one chain is one chain too many to truly be free. Simply put, a single worry of how the world views you is the equivalent of slavery. You are bound. You are a captive. Not to the world's view of you, because it has no real power over you, but to your own thoughts, and it's in those thoughts that the most beautiful pieces of you are stripped away. Until...

Like the leaves of the season, so are friends. Blooming in our lives but for a brief, waking moment, shining bright, vibrant in all their splendor... then quickly fading into yesterday as a new season peeks over the horizon. Suddenly the leaves begin to change and we find ourselves gripping tighter and tighter, holding on to what we had while each beautiful color fades before our eyes... If only we could learn to let go, how much heartache we would save. Sometimes we find ourselves simply gripping that leaf because of how long we've held it. Holding onto friends that...