Music speaks the language of the soul, penetrating into the past and resonating into the future, unearthing pain and tenderness and sorrow and joy, reminding us of our infinite fragility and extraordinary strength, reigniting our dreams and passions once again to remind us of who we are meant to be.

Forgiveness isn't telling someone it was okay to hurt you. It's telling yourself it’s okay to stop hurting. It doesn’t mean you have to trust them again. It means you can learn to trust yourself again. It doesn’t mean you have to give them a free pass back into your life. It means you are free to take your life back again. Forgiveness is simply emptying your past of its power to empty your present of its peace.

I rise. Again. And again. Not as the morning birdwhose song springsto sudden glorious lifeat the dawning of the light,but as the sun who touches the horizonwith tender fingertipsbefore reaching open arms across the skyto embrace another dayto weather the stormsto stand tall and breathe fireand then to descend into restuntil it's time to rise again. And againI rise.

Do not be hardened by the pain and cruelty of this world. Be strong enough to be gentle, to be soft and supple like running water, gracefully bending around sudden turns, lithely waving in strong winds, freely flowing over sharp rocks, all the while quietly sculpting this hard world into ever deeper beauty, gently eroding rigid rock into silken sand,tenderly transforming human cruelty into humankindness. Remember, true strength is not found in the stone, but in the water that shapes the stone.

Life doesn't always get better.But you do. You get stronger.You get wiser. You get softer.With tattered wings you rise.And the world watches in wonderat the breathless beauty ofa human who survived life.

Pieces of who I wasshatteredreassembledinto who I am;Shards shaping into prisms casting arcs of soul-fireinto who I will be;I am a kaleidoscopeof all the versionsof myselfI was and amand will become.

Forget that old adage 'forgive and forget.' It's an impossible standard. The human heart never forgets its pain. We can and often do choose to forgive and heal and move on. But the scars remain. Like words pounded out on an old typewriter leave impressions that can never truly be erased, the heart remembers.

The world told you that you had to hide your pain,to be small and quiet,so you wouldn't rock the boat.And you believed.Then one day you saw the silent pain in the eyesof a small and quiet girl in a boat boundfor nowhere.And a warrior awoke.You freed the girl from the silent shacklesand told her that her story mattered,to tell it deep and wide and loud,to set the boat ablaze with every fierce and fiery wordso all the world could hearand heal.And you believed.

Forgiveness empties the past of its power to empty the present of its peace.