Practice Makes Perfect (or Something Like That)

I saw this great quote on facebook yesterday (yes, I spend some time catching up on friends' lives),

"Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave."                                                        - Aristotle

I've blogged about " our thoughts and desires are the beginning of our actions" and so forth;  I loved this quote.  It's in the "doing" what we're thinking, that we become.   


I was reminded today of how faith begins; as a desire and then hope and then belief, which in turn moves us toward actions, which then turn to faith, and even more faith as we continue doing.  We don't grow if we don't actually practice or do.  


"Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it; men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we become brave."                                                        - Aristotle

A Few Thoughts on Changing Negative to Positive

I haven't posted on Thought"full"ness in more days than I like to skip;
it's been a busy weekend as well as one with just a little drama thrown in.  I'm not going to go into every detail of the drama, but I need to put my voice to a few details and then I will be done with it.

Saturday morning, my daughter-in-law (my son's wife who a month ago gave birth to 26 week twins) contacted me through facebook and asked me if I'd not re-post her blog each evening to my facebook wall; someone (who it seemed could have been on my "friends" list) anonymously posted a comment on Ranae's blog which was nothing but hurtful and judgmental.  I was so overcome with hurt and anger that the tears came; one of those tearful moments I blogged about a while ago and there were no words to express how I felt; however, I felt a need to express my feelings directly and unfortunately, to all of my facebook friends, since I had no idea who had posted on Ranae's blog.  That post took me more than a few minutes to compose, and thanks to help from a dear friend who was here; I wanted to make sure I wasn't posting something that I would have to apologize for later; I really didn't want to hurt the anonymous person; just get the point across that it wasn't cool and it was more hurtful than anything, what she/he had posted. (the mother bear came out in me; that doesn't happen very often; I can probably count it on one hand the number of times I have felt a strong need to defend a member of my family)

As the day went on, more and more postitive comments from friends who I knew in real life were posted onto my facebook page to Ranae; I was happy.  In reality, I know that there are more people than not praying for Lyla and Mae's improvement, as well as for Ranae and Brent to have the strength to continue in their journey with these precious babies.

After I got over my initial surprise that someone would really do something that hurtful, the feeling of sadness also came over me for that person.  How unhappy must that person be to spew negativity towards someone else?  There was one comment that was very eye-opening for me,
"When we place judgment about others where we think they are broken we really show where we are broken. (Matt Townsend)    This quote brought back some not- so- pleasant  things that I may have said about others throughout my life; it brought some self-reflection which was probably much needed.  


I am a believer that positive things come out of bad things; I can't believe that there's not a silver lining to most negative situations.   If this person had not made a hurtful comment towards Brent and Ranae and their parenting, we all may have never known the amount of support out there for them and their babies.   And as a result of this incident, Ranae may be making some new friends and contacts with others who are in her same situation; that's a good thing.
I also feel grateful for this in my life; it has shown me that it's possible to let things go and to move on without harboring bad feelings.  It also shows me, yet again, that it only matters what I do- not what others do.  

**I can't speak for Brent and Ranae's "take" on this incident.  I only hope that they have let it go and are using their energy on their little family.