My Most Powerful Lessons From the Cruelty of Others

My Most Powerful Lessons From the Cruelty of Others

My dress was torn at the waist. The sole was detached from my shoe. I felt shame. I wanted to run away but. . .

I was living with my maternal grandmother at the time. My siblings and I had been moved from my paternal grandfather’s home after his wife died. I hated moving around. I felt abandoned. . . angry, but what could I do as a child except what the adults directed.

“You’re always destroying everything you get. I’m not repairing anything else for you. Wear what you have,” my grandmother said.

She had made up her mind and there was no changing it. I walked with my siblings to the bus stop. As I boarded the bus I headed to the back of the bus hoping no one would see my dress and particularly my shoes.

The bus came to a stop at the school. I walked slowly forward thinking that instead of going to school I would run away. Halfway down the bus aisle, a strange thing happened, I heard a voice say, “It’s not what you have on that makes you, but who I am on the inside of you.”

I stepped off the bus with a confidence and fearlessness I had never experienced. That day no one noticed my torn dressed, nor that I was walking in an awkward way to keep my shoe soul from flapping.

What I learned that day:

1.     Things happen to good people and bad. Get over it.

2.     You can only control your attitude

3.     Be guided by your inner voice

4.     You become what you believe

The lessons I learned from my childhood experiences have shaped me into the person I have become today, and I continue to turn negatives into positives.

Maybe it's time to forgive (click here).