Thankful Thursday #6

To learn from our enemies is the best pathway to loving them: for it makes us grateful to them. -- Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900)

This is a lesson I have learned over and over again in the process of healing from childhood sexual abuse. Learning to find gratitude and blessings from evil is a trying lesson, but I believe it is vital to healing, growth, and development.

Every opportunity that we have for growth is an opportunity for gratitude. To be stagnate is to have no life at all. Surviving is only the first step to living the life that God has planned for each of us. If we stop at surviving, we have missed so much. God wants us to thrive!

Obviously there is a global application to this concept, as well as a personal one. We must learn from our enemies on the broader scope if we want any hope of a world as God envisioned it. We learn to not repeat mistakes, we learn to be kind, generous, and loving. The goal is not to figure out why they are enemies, but to develop skills to bring each and every person closer to God's vision.

It's been another week of struggles for me. An email that confused me and left me in real pain, and yet I made another step toward healing as the result of that pain. 

Another episode of abuse from my past looked at and seen for what it really was -- abuse. And the reminder that my confusion is a good sign. To understand evil choices is to move closer to making those same choices ourselves.

So today I will keep processing the pain, both emotional and physical. I will feel a little down in the dumps, but I will not let it keep from moving toward the life God has for me.

And I will move forward in gratitude.

link up at Grace Alone