“Courage is the decision to place your dreams above your fears.”

As the plane landed on the return trip from Spain and Portugal*, it didn’t escape me that it was nine years ago I also had just returned from Italy.  It isn’t unusual that I am gone during a certain day in February.  Let’s be honest, it is just plain easier to be in a country that doesn’t acknowledge or celebrate certain holidays. 

I don’t have many specific moments in my life that I can look back on and with absolute clarity state that it forever changed me.  This day holds one of those for me.  When it happened it felt like electricity flowing through my blood and it was instantaneous.  I knew immediately that I was being presented with something that would be life altering.  It scared me so much that I avoided as much of the situation as I could for the next couple of months because I didn’t know what or how to handle it especially when I knew something before I logically should.

So very many things have transpired over these last nine years that should have dissuaded me from what was learned on that day.  It still amazes me how deeply ingrained it is in my heart and impossible to deny.  I suppose that there are reasons unknown to me as to why that is, but I hope to have the missing puzzle piece one day handed to me so that I can finish the picture and see the glory of the plan.  Maybe understanding will make it easier.

Honestly there isn’t a day that has passed that in one way or another that this hasn’t been in my mind and my heart.  Today it is just particularly vivid and real. 

*More to come on the trip as soon as I have pictures developed and can share one or two.