Everybody is a Somebody

Everybody is a somebody. Everybody.

I've been lucky enough in my life to be taught these truths through some really hard trials.

I've learned these truths through my marriage to a man with an addiction. I've learned these truths through my own eating disorder addiction. I've learned these truths from some pretty bad decisions I've made and some pretty bad decisions others have made that have affected my life.

And here I am, a genuinely good person; an imperfect, often obnoxious person who struggles with her own addictions and although I could sit here and feel sorry for myself that life is hard and lonely and scary sometimes, that just seems like a waste of what I'm going through.

Either way, I'm going to go through this crap. I don't have a choice in that matter. People have made decisions, promises have been broken, lives have been altered---and all I have left is my choice of how to deal with this.

So I'm choosing to learn.

I'm choosing to learn that addictions don't make you a bad person. I've known some pretty wonderful people do some pretty horrible things. They aren't bad people. They made bad choices. Addiction is a subject that has taught me empathy and patience---well, mostly empathy. I have learned that it is possible to look past someone's actions and try and see their heart. I absolutely, positively hate addiction---but I don't hate the addict. Huge difference, friends.

I'm choosing to learn that I can truly open my heart to love everyone around me. I don't need to agree with them. Our world is full of so much controversy. We see things on the news or in articles about the choices people are making and we have the choice to judge them or love them. But everybody is a somebody and they deserve the opportunity to voice what their heart feels.
I've been having a hard time seeing all of this Ordain Women stuff in the media because the arguments on both sides have gotten pretty tense. I see people bashing characters of people they have never met. I see horrible words being thrown out into the internet world to describe people who have never seen each other face to face. It was really getting me down that people would feel the need to talk so horribly about each other like that and so I posted this on Facebook:

You guys, we NEED each other. We need to have kindness and positive influences around us. We need to feel love and give love. We need to support and be supported.
So if we spend our time tearing people down, we have wasted time we could use lifting someone up. #loveoverpowers #weareallequal #everyonedeserveslove #randomthoughtsonasunday

I believe every word I said on that Facebook post. We really do need more love and less negativity. We need to give people the benefit of the doubt before jumping to the worst conclusions.

I no longer believe there are bad people---only people that make bad choices. We all have good within us. And most of the people we are bashing are making decisions they believe to be the best decisions possible for themselves.

Addiction has taught me to look beyond a person's actions and try and see them as children of God because that is truly who they are. Although addiction has caused some of the most painful trials I have ever experienced in my life, I am the Suzanne that I am because of the experiences that I've had and today, I wouldn't change that. {But don't ask me on a low day. On a low day, I tell addiction to go to hell and I wish none of this had ever happened...}

I am nowhere near perfect and I'm not over here claiming to be. I just know how much happier I feel when I'm trying my damndest to love the people around me---and even the people thousands of miles away from me.

This world needs more love.