This Is Not My Story: Healing through Acceptance, Action, and Ascension (Paperback) by Lorraine C Lordi

How can we accept sorrow and disappointments in our lives? What enables us to face another day when we face unexpected tragedy and loss? Where do we find meaning in those moments that leave us weak and wondering? In our darkest times, where do we find the light? Although Lorraine Lordi does not try to dictate answers to any of these questions, ("I'm no theologian, and I'm certainly not a saint!"), through her recent experience with being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she has slowly come to grasp some guiding beliefs that have sustained her during this unpredictable journey. She hopes that some of her discoveries may help others as they, too, face their own struggles no matter how tiny or how tragic. Getting up with a teething baby in the middle of the night or wrestling with demons through addiction, every chapter in our lives can take on a whole new meaning if we can find a deeper meaning to whatever is happening to us. Our circumstances may differ, but our journeys follow similar fluctuations between trials and tribulations. If we are not only going to survive but thrive on this journey, we must find an internal place of stillness where we can listen to a voice that will lead us along the right path. By trusting in this voice, we may see this journey as a mysterious process of accepting the roles we've been asked to play, acting out the plot before us, and ascending beyond ourselves to find a connection to a higher, loving force. We can call this force God or Allah or Yahweh or Everything or Nothing or Spirit or Power or Love. Or any other name that helps us better understand what a special role we play in the all of life. By trusting in this force, we can rise above our suffering and become compassionate sources of light that are connected to one great Source and to one another. In other words, we are not now or have ever been walking on this path alone. In this book, Lorraine details the live-saving truth that lifted her out of her most despairing moments -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Her story is still in the process of being written, and she has no clue where she is along the path right now. Is she at the beginning? The end? Will she feel better tomorrow? Will she take a turn for the worse? None of us knows what will happen tomorrow let alone in the next hour. But no matter what has happened, what will happen, or what is happening in our lives, Lorraine has come to embrace this one guiding truth: Someone or Something else is guiding us along this path whose end we cannot see. Not only that, but this Guide has created a special plan for each one of us out of unconditional love. Go ahead and call that idea wacky. Lorraine once thought so, too. We're not in control of our own lives? Who in this modern-day world wants to believe that? During a silent, unstructured retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Louisville, Kentucky, though, Lorraine heard five simple words a humble monk quietly spoke as she made plans to go home early. What were these five words that made her stay for the whole week? How did these words change her perspective about her own disease? What other gifts has she found along the way to bring her out of darkness and into the light? When she fell on the side of the road, what did she discover about choices she could make along the way to make her path smoother? And why did she spend nearly three years writing this book when her opening line states, "This is not a book I want to write"? You may discover the answer to that question as you read this book. More importantly, you may find the peace, faith, and compassion you need as you struggle to find meaning though your own story. That is the Real Author's greatest hope.