Adjectives

I did one of those experiments on facebook that tells your friends to post one words that describe you. I was amazed at about 60 comments that were so kind. Of course, I had to get "old" from a Wellston student, but you know what, the reason so many of the other words were so complementary is because I am old. Not real old, but old enough.
Next week I will turn 55 years old. What would people have said about me when I was 25? I don't know because I wouldn't have posted anything like that then. My friends weren't as kind then as they are now, and I wasn't very admirable. I would have probably been described as snotty, arrogant, silly, blabbermouth. See how words can be twisted to hurt. One of my friends yesterday described me as talkative--truthfully I'm surprised I didn't get loquacious, garrulous, and all the other synonyms for talkative there are. I've been called a chatterbox since I first learned to talk.
I just really want to share that at different times in my life, my descriptive words would have been much different. The most complementary ones to me were the ones that had to do with my spiritual strength. Would those have been used to describe me in previous decades? Maybe it has been the events of the last 13 years that have pushed me to move out of my "silliness" into a mature Christian. My mother died when I was 41, and I had to make a decision then about how I was going to reconcile my faith with her death. Up to that point in my life, I had never had my heart broken. When she died, I felt the pain in my heart. It wasn't just emotional pain; it was physical.
Of course since that time, my two sisters, my dad, and Jason have joined Mom in heaven. With each death I have felt sorrow, heartbreak, severe sadness, but the one thing I have never felt is alone. God has carried me through my darkest hours.
Jason's death has been the most difficult to get beyond, but one thing that is different from what I expected is that every thought of him does not bring pain. My memories of him are sweet. What hurts is his lack of a future. I've said it before, but I will always grieve Jason's future. I will grieve the things he didn't get to experience on this earth, happy marriage, fatherhood, being an uncle. Those things bring much joy on this earth, but I have to keep reminding myself where he is. He has all the joy he needs.
Knowing that lets me be described as strong, faithful, spiritual, etc. Thanks everyone for the complements.