By Kathleen Taylor

"Ten years from now we'll see the physical realization of many of the ideas we nourish today. What we see today is a sum total of the thoughts, feelings, and actions we've fostered in the past." (Leslie Householder, Mindset Mastery Lesson 12)

What!?
I asked for this?

Divorced, with 50/50 custody of my children?
Spending every other week… alone?

How is this the sum total of my thoughts, feelings, and actions?

Ten years ago, I had a four-month-old—baby number six.
The five before him came roughly two years apart.
He’s ten years and three days younger than my oldest daughter.

Life back then was a lot.
I was deep in the trenches of motherhood.
Every day felt like survival mode.

I battled postpartum depression.
Money was tight.
Marital intimacy was strained.
Everything was overwhelming.
Everyone needed me.
Everyone wanted to touch me.
Everyone was in my space.

My sister once said she sometimes speeds when she sees a police officer—hoping to get pulled over and sent to solitary confinement.

I felt that.

So yes, ten years ago, I had thoughts of being alone.
Plenty of them—supercharged with some very real emotion.

And because life is either forming or dissolving—growing or declining—I unknowingly set in motion the reality I’m living now.

My subconscious got the memo loud and clear.
She went straight to work, serving up some powerful experiences.

Some brought me closer to my family.
Some pulled me away.

Add in a dose of pride, loneliness, unforgiveness, and infidelity… and my marriage ended.
Our family split clean down the middle.
I was voted off the island.

Moments like that force deep soul-searching.
I saw—crystal clear—what I had been blind to for two decades.
I made mistakes. A lot of them.

But my story isn’t over.

Yes, I’m alone right now.
But for the last two years, I’ve been pouring my energy into a new set of emotionally charged thoughts.

I FEEL the loving relationship I’m in.
I SEE how we hold hands and support each other.
I HEAR the laughter, the kind words.
I TASTE the sweetness of life.
I SMELL the family dinners we enjoy together.

And now, I get to watch as people, resources, and experiences align for my benefit.

No fear.
No doubt.
Just Rare Faith—

—and the Law of Perpetual Transmutation doing its work, bringing life into form.

A message from Leslie:

It's an uncomfortable thing to consider, that the unwanted things in our life might have been a response to our careless thoughts in the past, but there are two things I want to say about that. 

1. If it's true (and you can decide for yourself if there's any merit to it), then that means you may have a greater influence for shaping a better future than you think.
2. For those who push back with something like, "How can you say that sick children brought their illness upon themselves?" What I'm saying is that our spirits long for growth, and we long to reach our highest potential. We will never be truly satisfied until we have fully grown to our greatest stature. So, as we dream of what we hope for, life responds with experiences that will help get us there.
   
   Sometimes it responds with obvious assistance, but more often it responds with challenges which are blessings in disguise. Every unwanted experience contains an equal or greater benefit (by law), so even when we suffer greatly, those experiences are simply life's way of responding to our innate longing to grow, bringing us opportunities to develop God-given attributes that cannot be developed in any other way. That's why, the worse things are, the greater our opportunity.
   
   Start looking for every gift hidden inside your challenges, and your life will begin to take new shape.

For an illustration of this principle, I immediately think of Ben Kjar. Watch his story for date night this week... you won't be sorry. And you'll probably start seeing your challenges (and those of your loved ones) in a whole new light.

Standout: The Ben Kjar Story. Also available on other platforms.

That's how we grow. That's how our life changes... not by things suddenly getting easy, but through adversity to which we begin responding lawfully.