"If you can't change the world, you can move the furniture"--Gladys Six.

This is a saying I grew up hearing, as it was spoken by my great-grandmother and oft repeated by my grandmother. Honestly, as a child it didn't make a lot of sense to me. What did moving furniture have to do with anything?

It makes so much sense now.

I have little control over what happens in my life--none of us really have any, it's just a matter of realizing it, I suppose. The past couple of weeks since Steve left for his deployment have been kind of a 'holding pattern' for me. Just trying to get through, do the next thing, deal with the kids' issues and not lose my mind in the process. He's not been gone that long yet, but the months stretch out in front of me.

I read something simple yet profound a couple of days ago. Basically it said, we can deal with anything, once we accept it.

Gladys had to accept many things now that I look back at her life. She lived through two world wars, her husband Ray serving in WWI. She was a missionary to China as a young wife in the 1920s, and delivered several of her children there, including her first, my grandmother, Mary Virginia. My grandmother told me how she had to walk down a mountainside in the dark to get to the midwife to deliver. That's some woman.

Gladys also lost a son in his early adult years, to diabetes. That's a heartache I can't even imagine going through. She saw her husband pass away before her.

I'm sure my great-grandmother had many other struggles I know nothing about. Yet she was remembered by her children as a loving mother, friend, writer, gardener extraordinaire. She obviously took the time in the midst of her busy and challenging life to cultivate beauty, love, and friendship.

It helps me to look back at her and realize my tiny trials will also pass.

In the meantime, I'm moving the furniture.