As I sit here this morning, 1st November, a new day, a new month, a lazy Sunday morning with the rain pouring down outside and the leaves all scattered, carpeting the lawn as they are blown from the trees, I looked through some old documents and found this little quote.

Experience is not what happens to you - it is what you do with what happens to you.

It was written by Aldous Huxley - have you read any of his books? I seem to recall I read Brave New World many years ago but I don't really remember the detail. Looking on Wikipedia I read something of his life this morning to see what he did with the things that happened to him. Born in England in the late 18th century, he was one of several children and his father was a school-master. His mother also founded a school and taught him at one point when he had an illness that left him almost blind for a few years. This changed the course his life took ... and eventually he ended up living in America though he didn't take up citizenship because as a pacifist he refused to say that he would take up arms to defend the USA. I've skipped a whole chunk of years there but you can read the full article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley

So what have I done with my life that is not what happened to me but how I took that and used it? Difficult question, even over a mug of coffee! Well I consider I have led a very unremarkable life. My father died when I was a teenager and in some ways looking back I think that was why I married relatively young. I needed a man in my life who would look after me. We had children and my role for many years was firstly as a mother and wife. It always will be but now with an elderly mother who is on her own, I am having to be more of a daughter again - not that I ever stopped being one, but it's had to take a higher priority.

My husband and I (makes me sound like the Queen!) have been taking stock of where we are - mothers, children, houses, jobs - and we're at another of those points in our life where we're planning for our future. We've always done that and mostly it's worked out as we hoped and as we expected. Maybe that's the way in which together we've taken what we have and used it, made the best we can of our lives.

And if you're ever in doubt as to what to do with what happens to you, just remember that God is there waiting to hear your prayer - in the words of a phrase from a tv advert for British Telecom "It's good to talk!". :)