CONFRONT AND CONQUER THE STORM

Every one of us must eventually face the storm by Bryant McGill

The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. When the storm comes, pray that it will shake you to your roots and break you wide-open. Being broken open by the storm is your only hope. When you are broken open you get to discover for the first time what is inside you. Some people never get to see what is inside them; what beauty, what strength, what truth and love. They were never broken open by the storm. So, don't run from your pain — run into your pain. Let life's storm shatter you.

The beauty of being shattered is how the shards become our character and our marks of distinction. This is how we are refined by our pain. When the storm rips you to pieces, you get to decide how to put yourself back together again. The storm gives us the gift of our defining choices. You will be a different person after the storm, because the storm will heal you from your perfection. People who stay perfect and unblemished never really get to live fully or deeply. You will not be the same after the storms of life; you will be stronger, wiser and more alive than ever before!

You see, it is our pain that connects us to all of the most beautiful parts of life. Love is such a marvelous pain. Birth, death and suffering show us the essence of life and teach us so perfectly what is most important and precious. We are all made complete by our pain. When the storm of life comes howling and raging outside your window; when you look that tempest in the eye, there will be a quickening in your instincts. In that moment you will burn with aliveness. Your total intelligence knows exactly what to do, because you were made to weather the storms of life. You will survive, and both you and the world will be transformed.
"When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm is all about."
— Haruki Murakami

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THE INVISIBLE WALL - HARRY BERNSTEIN

The power of persistence. Harry Bernstein wrote 40 books but destroyed the manuscripts after they were all rejected by publishers. Bernstein was 93 when his wife of 67 years died and started writing to help deal with his grief. He spent 3 years writing his memoir "The Invisible Wall."

He sent the manuscript to many New York publishers, all of whom turned it down. Then he sent it to an editor at Random House in the UK, where it sat in a pile of unsolicited manuscripts for a year before it was read by a stunned publishing director who immediately recognized it as inspired writing. It was published in 2007 when Mr. Bernstein was 98. He would write three more acclaimed books, all of which were published, up until his death at 101. Bernstein called his 90s, "the most productive years of my life."