Embrace the many seasons of life.

I hope that everyone that reads this message had a delightful holiday. This time of year we are so busy shopping, cooking, decorating, making plans, and juggling the expenses we encounter; that we must isolate the things that are the sources of pleasure in our life. If you would allow me to share my sources of pleasure with you, I would be honored.
On December 25th a two year old little boy’s eyes widen as pulls apart the wrapping paper revealing a large wheel that is attached to the bed of a truck. He follows the outline of the red flames with his finger, and looks at his daddy with a giant smile on his face. His little sister that is nine months old watches her older brother with confusion as to what the fuss is all about. At the speed of a lightning bolt, her facial expression changes when she pulls her very first baby doll close to her heart. My Son looks at his babies with so much gratitude at the fact that he has two beautiful children. Across the room amongst all of the commotion, a kitten jumps straight up into the air as if she was launched off of the space shuttle pad and lands on top of her toy mouse that she got for Christmas. My husband pulls the wrapping paper away from a box that has the date written on it. The date was 1923. He lights up with an enormous smile when he realizes he has another Die cast car to add to has vast collection. I was lucky enough to get one present for the kids and my family.
While I am embracing all the joy that is around me, I am thanking God for blessing me with this family. Christmas seems to come and go very quickly, and sometimes I find myself saying wow, I cannot believe it is summer already. So, even seasons seem to come and go quickly.
I ask you to take a minute and relate seasons to being the same as events and experiences in our lives. We experience love, thankfulness, joy, happiness, sadness, stress, grief, and hopelessness. While the beautiful earth that we live on has only four seasons, we have many. During one of the most important seasons of my life, God bestowed upon me, knowledge. He allowed me to have a career in nursing to help me support my baby boy for fifteen years. The experiences that I am honored to tell you about from my nursing career are priceless. I have been given the gift to partake in saving people’s lives. I have had the joy of comforting people who were experiencing their last days of life.
There is one more event that in my life that has been on my heart for a long time. You see, I was raped and molested as a young girl at age thirteen and sixteen. I attempted suicide to escape my abuser. It all ended when I turned seventeen. The Lord encouraged me to change this negative event in my life and make something good out of it. It made so much sense. Since I was a nurse with critical care experience, behavioral health experiences and had worked with women and studied sexual abuse for the past ten years, that this was my mission and my new season. I wrote a book about how to heal. I wanted to start a nationwide group called Survivors of Sexual Abuse Speak Out. I put together my website: www.apreciouslifebyleetomlinson.com. Then I hit a wall. The jigsaw puzzle that I was putting together in a frame fell apart. You see, I went to have a surgery to get a new knee. I had been working on crutches and wanted to continue my nursing career as a forty two year old woman. All of a sudden, my knee surgery backfired on me. I now have a disorder/disease called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. I am suddenly disabled. My nursing career is over. My dream was to put this book in the hands of thousands of women. I have done everything from writing letters to persons of public power such a Hillary Clinton, Whoopie Goldberg, Joyce Meyer, (a Christian spokesperson) to knocking on doors. I do not know where to find the pieces of this new puzzle. I am asking you to pray for me. I will never give up.
I hope that you all are blessed during your upcoming seasons. Start this new year by taking the time to enjoy the little things in life, like a baby’s belly laugh! That is priceless. Hug each other and tell each other every day that you love one another. Make a new year’s promise that if you have a problem you will ask for help. Tell yourself that today you are going to start doing one good thing for someone every day. I know that times are tough for a great deal of Americans, so pray and Look to the Lord during your next holiday season. Happy New Year! 2010! If you have had been sexually abused, you can reach me at: marleehar@frontiernet.net.
Sincerely, Marcelle Lee Tomlinson RN