Thought I’d get your attention with that subject line!\u00a0 Have you ever walked through HELL?\u00a0 Or what you perceived to be HELL?\u00a0 HELL on Earth, anyways!\u00a0 That muck and mire of the craziness of life?\u00a0 When perceptions are skewed, realities are feeble, and hope\u00a0seems a looming figment of our imaginations.\u00a0 When challenges grip us with clawing nails, and our feet slip on the ice of instability.\u00a0 We’ve all been there, I know.<\/p>\n
While I was living in Vienna, Austria, the powerful and hurtful winters would always teach me something.\u00a0 Whether it be that I’m physically incapable of functioning in sub zero temperatures or that waddling the streets layered as thick as the Pillsbury Dough Boy is actually not as unattractive when everyone is doing the same thing, the frosty air does seem to conjure up some interesting thoughts.\u00a0 Something happened there in the snowy Winter-wonderland of Vienna, Austria<\/span>, that made me I was leaving a store called IKEA<\/span>, which is a home furnishing department store.\u00a0 Really cheap.\u00a0 Really huge.\u00a0 Really\u00a0cool.\u00a0 I bought a large frame for a poster, and as a typical means of transportation, set to walking to the bus stop, lugging my frame along.\u00a0 During the first moments of my 7 minute walk to the stop, I\u00a0entered into a new experience: walking through HAIL. Not the kind of hail storm us Southerners are familiar with.\u00a0 No, no.\u00a0 This was a driving, pain-in-the-face hail storm…the weirdest kind of weather I’d been privy to firsthand!<\/p>\n The natives on the sidewalk with me quickly picked up the pace, struggling to reach the\u00a0oasis of the bus stop. I remained steadfast in my ambling, wanting to experience the full effect for fear I’d never have that oddly thrilling\u00a0experience ever\u00a0again.\u00a0 As I walked, the frame made things a bit challenging, acting as a sort of sail, knocking me off balance with the blustering wind.\u00a0 But, I finally reached the shelter with a smile on my face and the weight of Austrian stares. \u00a0I’m sure they were experiencing something new, too, as they watched this weird American who didn’t know enough to get out of the HAIL.\u00a0 I was smiling at the experience…the thrill of a strange challenge…the excitement of a walk through HAIL.\u00a0 I was covered with tiny pellets of snow and ice, and I was enveloped in the aura of it all.<\/p>\n I will always remember dressing for days like that, donning my multi-layered clothing- my long-johns, my coat, my scarf, my gloves, my hat, my wool socks, and my boots to make the trek through the snow to school, as I did every day for that really long, gloomy winter.\u00a0 Now, in the warmth of the Georgia sun, I think back on those cold days in Austria and think to myself about what I can do now with that humorous experience,\u00a0that walk through HAIL.\u00a0 To play on words for a bit as my English degree forces me to do,\u00a0I relate walking through HAIL to walking through HELL.\u00a0 For the most part, when we walk through the trials we call HELL, we don’t or won’t or can’t smile at the experience, be thrilled at the challenge, or feel the excitement of the walk.\u00a0 We bend our knees to the difficulty, bow our heads to the struggle, and cover our eyes to the threat.\u00a0 Not that I have any room to talk or offer any morsel of insight, but I am reminded of two things by my walk through HAIL.<\/p>\n Like the Austrians, now I know enough to get out of the HAIL.\u00a0\u00a0Run to the shelter.\u00a0 Speed up until\u00a0I reach the oasis from the storm.\u00a0 Pick up the pace until\u00a0I’m safely at the bus stop.\u00a0 And\u00a0parallel to my “utopia,” my safe shelter as the pellets of snow and ice were slapping me in the face, I press on.\u00a0 Maybe we can’t oddly relish the discomfort of the pangs of the storm like I did, but we can recognize the storm for what it is…a passing blip on the radar, and we can press on.<\/p>\n In a matter of moments, the HAIL ceased and the sky was clear.\u00a0 No remnants of the HAIL storm except little balls of ice in my shopping bag.\u00a0 These little reminders made it all the way back to my apartment.\u00a0 I was going to get some of them out and have a small snowball fight with Pinkey (my cat), but I decided to set them in the freezer to see how long they would last.\u00a0 Eventually they got lost and were probably used to cool a soda.\u00a0\u00a0Anyway, there will be little reminders, too, of your walk through HELL.\u00a0 That’s the paradoxical delight. \u00a0Use the reminders for something beneficial.<\/p>\n So, be encouraged.\u00a0 Press on\u00a0through your HELL until you reach the shelter where lessons are learned, pains cease, sodas are cooled, and the reminders teach and delight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thought I’d get your attention with that subject line!\u00a0 Have you ever walked through HELL?\u00a0 Or what you perceived to be HELL?\u00a0 HELL on Earth, anyways!\u00a0 That muck and mire of the craziness of life?\u00a0 When perceptions are skewed, realities are feeble, and hope\u00a0seems a looming figment of our imaginations.\u00a0 When challenges grip us with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-from-sheryl-green"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153493"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155514,"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153493\/revisions\/155514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.muscogee.k12.ga.us\/jordan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthink of an interesting parallel.<\/p>\n