Life happens for us, not to us.

Years ago, I never could have imagined I would fully understand this quote.  I just did not appreciate all the changes, challenges, and mishaps in life. They represented difficulty, not the opportunity to grow. 

But each time I look back on changes and challenges, I see that things were really working out better than I had planned.  Sometimes it was the growth that I experienced through the discomfort that taught me to reach out for help or look in a new direction I had never seen before.  Other times, my life really did turn out so much better because what I wanted originally was a smaller version of what I ended up with.