Facing the hurdles of life......

My step daughter has inspired me to to start blogging. It's nothing really new to our family.  My husband has been blogging since 2006, I have previously blogged for difference businesses and she has been blogging since 2009.  Recently, she started another blog, an inspirational blog to help young girls face the challenges that teenage girls face today, it's called Beautiful Girls - Mind, Body and Spirit.  I am seeing her transform right before my eyes.  By reaching out to others she is growing herself. She is telling her story as she is living it.   It's usually only after people have over come or have conquered some great challenge in their life that they share it publicly.  It's not often that you get to share someone journey as they are going through the ups and downs that life has to offer.   I am so very proud of her courage and motivation to help others as she faces her own challenges.

Through out my own life I have faced many hurdles, some that many other face and some that I wish many would never have to face, but know that they have.  I only wish that I had someone like my daughter to turn to when I was her age.   However,  even though at one time I may have regretted  some of my decisions made in my younger years.  I can't think like that today.  My decisions right or wrong have made me the person I am today.  I have learned many things,  mostly the hard way, but no matter how hard or how many challenges I faced I never gave up.

In High School I ran the 110 and 300  hurdles.  I loved the challenge they presented.  It took practice, determination,  timing and strength to  be able to run hurdles.  Sometimes you would successfully clear the hurdle, sometimes you would just graze the top of it with your knee and sometimes you would even fall.  The things about hurdles though is that they are designed to create an obstacle that is a challenge, but not impossibility. Even if you hit the hurdle as your running them, they will give a bit and usually bounce right back into place.  I took some real life lessons from all those hurdles,  the ones I cleared and even the ones that knocked me down.

In life we may be faced with obstacles, it maybe one or several in a row, all; one right after another, or several spaced out over a longer distance. It's our approach to these hurdles that determine if we are able to clear them or not.  It takes the right timing and the right strength to persevere, but with the right amount of determination most challenges in life are just hurdles for us to clear.