Brittany Rebecca Helton

“When you find yourself overpowered by melancholy, the best way is to go out and do something kind to somebody.”

-John Keble

‘I’ll be on the lookout for something I can do for others when melancholy closes in around me.’

And time remembered is grief forgotten,

And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

– Algernon Charles Swinburn

‘Somewhere in the midst of my grief is the confidence that spring will come.’

Can I see another’s woe,

And not be in sorrow, too?

Can I see another’s grief,

And not seek for kind relief?

– William Blake

‘I am a member of the human family and all in need are my brothers and sisters.’

“He did not say: You will not be troubled, you will not be belaboured, you will not be disquieted; but he said: You will not be overcome.”

-Julian of Norwich

‘I am strong. I am saddened, sometimes tired, discouraged. But I’ve made it so far. I will not be overcome.’

“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. It is not enough that a thing be possible for it to be believed.”

-Voltaire

‘I will gather all my unresolved hurts and guilt in my hand and lay them at the feet of the All-wise, the All-knowing.’

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.

You know how it is with an April day

When the sun is out and the wind is still,

You’re one month on in the middle of May.

But if you so much as dare to speak,

A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,

A wind comes off a frozen peak,

And you’re two months back in the middle of March…

-Robert Frost

“Joy comes from simple and natural things, mists over meadows, sunlight on leaves, the path of the moon over water. Even rain and wind and stormy clouds bring joy, just as knowing animals and flowers and where they live.”

– Sigurd F. Olson

‘To allow myself to revel in simple joys will ease me into new hope, new courage for my life.’

“We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.”

-Dag Hammarskjold

‘I will embrace my life, all of it. If there are changes for the better that I can make, I will try to make them. Where I cannot, I will accept that, too. But – even if I could – I will not forget my pain. I will honor it. It is part of who I am.’

‘The presence that makes me sad may one day make me glad.’