It's a Hard...But Wonderful Life!

You are one-of-a-kind.

You are amazing. Yes, you. It doesn't matter if your house is a wreck. It doesn't matter if your kids have been living off graham crackers and string cheese all week. It doesn't matter that you feel like you are failing at everything you do.

You are unique. You are special. You were created for a specific purpose. You are no accident.

Don't hate me, but we are totally in Christmas mode at my house. I know, I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but this family LOVES Christmas. There is no stopping us. We traditionally start watching Christmas movies on Halloween night (they are just so much better than Halloween movies, sorry, not sorry). 

Have you ever watched It's a Wonderful Life? I'm a classic movie buff, and it's one of my all-time favorite movies. 

I cry buckets of tears throughout the whole movie. From the opening scene, when everyone is saying their prayers for George, to the closing scene, when he is standing in a room full of people who love him and his arms are full of his family. Ok, I start tearing up just typing about it. 

For those of you who have not watched it, the movie is about a man, George Bailey, who's life does not go as planned. In fact, several times in his life things go completely opposite of the way he had hoped, and he has to "settle" for the way things are. The discontentment with the way things have turned out snowballs until a very big event (that could get him into a lot of trouble) happens, and George is wrestling with the question of whether or not he should end his life. 

image from thewrap.com

George does not end up taking his own life, but through the help of an angel (silly, I know, but it makes the point) he gets to see what life would be like if he had never been born. 

Perhaps the director of the film was a bit dramatic about how much impact one life can have. 

Perhaps he wasn't. 

You will have to watch the movie to see the rest of George's story. But I think his story is a lot like all of our stories. Personally, my mom was at the point of wanting to end her own life at one time. And then she found out she was pregnant with me and decided against it. If she had completed her plans, my brother and I would never have been born. Our children would never have been born. Where would our spouses be now? The world would not have been blessed with my mother. The world needed my mother.

The world needs you, dear mother! You were chosen to be born when you were. I know that life has not been perfect. I know that things have not gone as planned. 

But you are NEEDED. You are PRECIOUS. You are LOVED.

You were, as Esther, created for such a time as this.

Much love,

Lee