Under the protective love of a Doug and Hayley ...

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.

Groucho Marx

I did my undergraduate honors thesis on resiliency in sick children. The ability of a child to be stretched to the utmost limit and to be able to overcome, and thrive despite the adversity that pulled them so tight. Under the ever challenging and encouraging supervision and care of Jennifer Mather, my favorite professor, I read article after article about what makes a child resilient. I can remember sitting at the very end of the library at the U of L starring out the window at the snow gently falling on the coulees trying to get my experience with resiliency to agree with one of the theories sprawled out in front of me. Without boring you with the details I came to agree with the theory of protective factors: That each person is born with and develops a set collection of factors that enable them to experience resiliency. There are many, and their influence on resiliency seems to vary depending on the adversity, but generally speaking if an individual has enough of these factors in relation to the experienced adversity they come out okay, and often thrive.

I still get excited about this topic and could, if not stopped by the thought of your bored faces, go on and on and on.

The reason this came into my thoughts this brilliantly quiet saturday morning was because I was trying to understand the connection and love I have for my friends Doug and Hayley. Last night, sitting in front of a backdrop of embroidered sea life on the worn seats at Red Lobster, I felt ... completely safe and so very loved. I agreed with Doug when he talked about how our relationship is one that can go without words for months and months and not be hurt in the least. Doug and Hayley have without a sliver of doubt been factors of protection building my resiliency. It has often been at their door step that I arrive in a heap of fear and tears feeling so very at the end of my ability to hold things together anymore.

It was in Doug's office at First Baptist Church in Lethbridge that hours were spent planning youth events, sharing pride in the kids we worked with, feeling the pain of the kids we worked with, laughing, and sharing about our lives.

It was with Doug that I slowly shared the depths of pain that my father's actions were causing in my little soul.

It was in the kitchen at a camp they were running up north, sitting on a stool peeling potatoes with Hayley that I first shared to anyone that I was feeling utterly lost and thought that I might be depressed. Even though I had not seen them forever, it was Doug and Hayley that I knew I needed to see. It was Doug and Hayley that I knew would listen, love, and encourage me in the right way.

It was Doug and Hayley that Mike knew he had to get me to when I sat hyperventilating with tear after tear rolling down my check, unable to eat, sleep, or move from the spot on the couch I had been sitting at. It was Doug and Hayley that we drove through a snow-storm, exhausted and drained beyond words to see. It was Doug and Hayley that opened up their hotel-room at the Banff Springs on their pastoral retreat weekend to listen to broken hearts and shattered dreams.

It was Hayley that proved to be the best mortgage broker in the world and pulled favors and fought so hard to get me the financing I needed to build myself a new home ... a new life

It is always with a little twinkle of pride that I sit before these two incredible people. They know what I have lived through; they have been with me when my tears have opened my eyes to reveal my heart and my soul, my happiness and my pain. And because they have seen me they know that it has been hard and they are proud of the girl that their love helped build. And I am proud to make them proud. Although I call them friends, they are much more. They are mentors; they are angels in my choir. They are a huge part of why after being so stretched, so many times, I continue to overcome. For that I am so very thankful to them. Their love is the kind that one does not feel worthy of. Their love is the the kind of love that protects. And I can trust that I will always be protected.