“She is clothed with strength and dignity and laughs without fear of the future.” ~ Proverbs 31
My teammate Lindsay Benson, shared this quote with me and said it brought her comfort and wondered how I felt about it, if it would make a good blog topic. I thought it would make a lovely blog topic. 🙂 I first had to look up dignity and according to Merriam-Webster (www.m-w.com) the first entry summed it up:
“the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed”
I first had to identify whether or not I felt I had dignity…am I worthy, honored or esteemed? My faith and relationship with God tells me “yes I am.”
As I personally reflect on that quote, I think of myself being clothed with strength and dignity and laughing without fear of the future. You may ask why? The biggest reason is that over the last 5 months I have really come to know myself, find out what I’m made of and still laugh without fear of what’s lies ahead. As you may or may not know, I’ve been suffering a medical condition that the doctors are still trying to figure out the nature and origin…as a result, I’ve been unable to speak above a whisper. This has prohibited me from doing many things, sure…at the same time, it has allowed me to expand my horizons, spread my wings and really find out what I’m made of–if you will.
Sure, I could sulk off into the shadows and feel like a victim–but that isn’t who I am and I only recently discovered that. I bumped into some things, emotionally, that caused me to evaluate what was going on around me and I was able to identify (with the help of my coach Stacey Hall) that if I continued on the path I was on, I was heading for a breakdown. I was able to take some steps back and begin to identify my strengths and stand in my dignity. At that point, I was also able to laugh without fear of the future. How that came to be is that I made a discovery that I am ok with the fact that my voice may not return…it’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world either. My friend Brian Taylor shared with me recently that the vocal voice is a way of speaking, it’s not the only way. And that really resonated with me. The place I had finally gotten to was being detached from the outcome of my voice returning or not. Ahhhh, that’s it. I sat back and had a good laugh at what the future has in store because I know I have the strength and dignity to carry on.