Sponsor Giveaway | Scrapbooking From The Inside Out

I've never considered if resilience is part of who I am. Those times when others said that they'd collapse in my situation puzzled me. I've always believed that there were people in more serious situations than whatever I was facing and that failure was {is} not an option.

How do you collapse when Husband and three children are severely injured in a car accident? Who else would interview and hire lawyers? Select the best traumatic brain injury rehab hospital for the 12 yr old who just came out of a four week coma? Husband was in no shape!

How do you allow bullies to win? I'll live my values and find a way to overcome the damage. {Ok, this is an on-going effort.}

It took years to realize that most children don't attend a new school every year until 5th grade. I empathize with those whose religious faith or lack of faith places them outside the majority - being Catholic in Southern Baptist TX gave me a glimpse of the 'outsider' feeling.

Is it resilience that pumps up my normal stubbornness to defiance, that causes me to refuse to stay down? I never thought of it that way.

This story seems so far in the past, yet so fresh at times when I am reminded of how fragile life can be. We tried and tried to have children. I blamed myself for all the difficulties we had since I had waited so long to even try. I blamed my "old" in the maternal world body for betraying us with several miscarriages. Our resilience in this story was in the trying after so many disappointments. We did everything that could be done to make this one dream come true. We finally had to turn to in vitro fertilization (our last step before adoption) and boy (or should I say "girl"?) did we get lucky. Resilience paid off & it made us much better parents than we ever thought we could be.

Resilience has many meanings in my life. My first real experience with it was laying in a hospital bed for 3 weeks in partial labor with my daughter at 23 weeks, and then going into full labor at 26 weeks and sitting by her crib side for 3 months and continue to be her mother and help her to develop into a healthy almost 3 year old now. I now encounter my own resilience again with loosing almost 100 pounds since the birth of my daughter and becoming a better role model and mother for her!

My 13-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Celiac Disease last year after experience a 15+ lb weight loss in 6 months. Although this las year has been full of struggles, she has faced the challenge and is finally gaining weight.

Everyone's posts here are amazing! I'm in awe!
Resilience for me means struggling with depression every day. Like someone said before, it's difficult to get out of bed every morning and go to work, fight being tired all the time while managing a huge workload. Sometimes I really don't know how to do it all, but God gives me strength to carry on and hope to get well again one day.

My resiliance is sticking out my ten year relationaship with a younger Turkish man :) His family turned there backs on him, but together we were strong and have gotten through some incredibly hard obstacles. Life is good!

the ability to wake up each day after losing a baby that we have been praying for. after all these time, it still amazes me how we can face each day with the reality that our baby is gone, with just spending a few weeks with us (mostly in the hospital).

Currently resilience for me is simply about getting on with everyday life and keeping the good spirits up! In a tough economic climate with two small children and only one breadwinner in the family it is sometimes hard but we are somehow actually enjoying life more right now than we have in the last few years! It has been healthy to look at what is really important for us as a family and in the years to come I think I will have learnt some really important life lessons from this time!!

I read everyone's comments and I feel in awe of so much hardship balanced with strength.
There have been difficult times in my life where the desire to keep going has kept me going. Thank God for the strength that he shares with us.

I have OCD and every day is a struggle and at the same time, every day is a victory.

Having anxiety and panic disorder. Being diagnosed with celiac disease and learning a whole new way to eat. Having a son on the autism spectrum. Living with my challenges and being grateful for my amazing life every day.

Resilience. In less than 3 months I've decided to return to full time, out of the home employment, prepared a house to sell and sold it, purchased a new home (which is being built from the ground up), and prepared my family for a move and change in our lives which includes a hundred small details. We're going to weather this like we've weathered other things and be the better, and stronger, for it!

My daughter's resilience last year and everyday since... her beloved Grammy (my mother) passed away from Ovarian Cancer a week after she started her first year at school... she is an amazing little girl and so is her younger brother... they were the light of my mum's life and will always been the life of mine and their father's...

In 14 1/2 months my sister was killed in a car accident; my mother fell and died 4 months later from complications of surgery after having survived an extended hospital stay and life support; my 47-year-old husband had a stroke; my son graduated high school and my daughter from college and both started a new college and grad school; my daughter bought a house and moved out; my son left for college and left us empty nesters; I was Executor of my mother and sister's estates and was in charge of emptying both of their houses, sorting and selling their things, and putting both of their houses on the market; and my husband's father suffered from Alzheimer's and we put both of his parents in the nursing home. I look back and am not sure how I survived.

I am currently fighting my way back from a relapse of Chronic Fatigue, and learning to cope with my condition while continuing to push my limitations is a constant challenge - something I believe gives me resiliance. As a teacher, it's a concept that I fell we need to examine closely and also teach. ife can be hard - we need skills to make it flow easier. Thanks for the opportunity.

Resilience to me is learning that certain people in your life honestly will never fill those roles in your life that you think they should. A parent may not be that parent you wish they were to you, a sibling may just not like you for who you are, etc. It's learning to accept situations like that and learning that it's not all your fault and then still being able to smile and accept it and filling your life with those who truly love you for you.

I just read many of the comments of women and their challenges and subsequent resilience...WOW! One of my challenges in the last 27 years is being a single parent each summer, anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months, as my husband works seasonly as a fisherman. There have been many good summers and those summers that were fraught with other things like the death of my mother, near death of my youngest daughter, etc. However, the resilience that comes from faith through out Lord Jesus Christ cannot be denied! It was in one of these earliest of seasons that I found how precious He was through turmoil and pain...how I could withstand anything with faith.

Finding out I had cancer when my baby was less than 1week old. Going through chemo and radiation and feeling like I was missing out on all his "firsts". He's about to turn 4 and now I realize that was the easiest time to be undergoing treatment and I can celebrate plenty of his firsts even now.

I LOVE the kits from SFTIO. They are so beautiful!!
Resilience - not a word that immediately comes to mind, but after some thought, I guess that the last 5 years of my life would be defined by resiience.
My husband passed away while I was in China with my father adopting our daughter. One year later I caught a very serious infection in my ankle that almost resulted in losing my leg below the knee. My daughter and I moved in with my WONDERFUL parents. Three weeks ago, I somehow caught another infection in my ankle and just returned home from 2 more weeks in the hospital.
I would say that my entire family is resilient, dealing with the uncertainty of my health - we take every day as it comes!

Thanks for the chance to win this excellent prize!!

I am the mome of a 24 year old, a 21 year old and a 18 year old and the hardest thing about being a parent is leaving your grown children in the hands of God and knowing he is in control. In this day and age it is a scarey world out there and when your "babies" are this old, you have to know you did the best you could in raising them and hope they remember their family values and learn from their mistakes.

Asking my parents to move-in with me when my father was diagnosed with cancer, and, now, after my father is gone, finding a way to live with my mom without driving each of us crazy. The hardest part is not letting all the stress NOT take over my life.

We were on top of the world until the housing market crash. I am a real estate attorney and had a nice, boutique practice. But, my practice has fallen apart. At 42, I have to retool and start over. I am looking starting a new business and perhaps not practicing law. A fresh start out of adversity can bring prosperity and happiness...eventually.
My husband and I figured we would be ok as he had a great job as a Superintendent for an international construction company. Unexpectedly, he was laid off in October and is still out of work. Unemployment is a pittance of course and is getting closer to running out. (He is starting to get interviews though and we are keeping our fingers crossed!)
My children are the most important people in my world and every day, I put on a happy face because I don't want this to affect them. I look at this situation as a mixed blessing because it has given me the time to be more involved at school and in their day to day lives.
It would have been very easy for me to wallow in self-pity, but that gets us nowhere. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. I have learned that money isn't everything and that our family is the most important thing.

Resilience. I love that word. It's something I've been praying my son would have ever since we found out we were pregnant with him. We were young and he was a surprise. We knew it'd be a tough road for all of us, and it probably wouldn't be too fair for him, but we prayed he would be able to bounce back regardless of the trials he would face. So far, I'd say he's been doing quite well.

Well, I have two that are inter-connected weighing heavy on my heart right now. My mom leaving today for a cancer checkup 7 hours from home and the only one available to go with her is my 19 yr old son. My mom has fought this cancer for 12 years, taking chemo every month for all those years. She's a fighter but she's 79 and tired. Hoping for good results from her testing (its a kind of cancer that requires maintenance chemo for the rest of her life). I must stay behind to help care for my dad who is home-bound with dementia and requires around the clock care. A shell of the man he once was and I miss him. But God has taken care of them both as they have taken care of each other for 53 years.

Ressilience. Being able to overcome all the anger anguish and uphappy moments I went thru w my divorce. My dd turned on me did bad in highschool, we fought and bickered hated every mintes of it while my ex remarried with his highschool love and had twins Girls I put my head into craftin to get back those good memories and feel good about movie forward and rekindle a better mom and grownup daughtr relationship. We both got into crafting and rebonded happy to say now I just have to work on trying to make my family of three fotos (of our past) and good memory lane album for my daughter its was happy times so I wld love to give tht to her