My First Guest

Dear Readers 
    Today is my one year anniversary of this blog and it is a very powerful thing for me to reflect on how I started this after being inspired and encourage by my dear friend Laura Page. I was thrilled to meet up with her a couple of years ago after reconnecting online. It is wonderful to see how she has grown up to be such a beautiful woman inside out and I am truly happy to call her my friend! She is also my inspiration for sharing this blog! Thank you Laura Sweetie for guest blogging on here today......I Love ya Lady!  
 Debby Shively

http://literarylegs.blogspot.com/

  Hi everybody, my name is Laura. I have known Debby for many years. So many years, in fact, that some of the first memories I have of Debby go back to when I was an awkward little tomboy of about eight years old and Debby was my babysitter. That’s right—one of my best blogging friends was once my babysitter! And I have to say, my siblings and I always BEGGED to have Debby over whenever my parents were taking a night off for themselves. Debby was an inspiration, and she continues to be an inspiration.

This month, Debby will have been blogging for a year. To my great honor, she asked me to guest post here, today, because she and I started blogging seriously around the same time, and we both inspire each other to write and express ourselves. Today, Debby is JUST as fun and spontaneous and warmhearted as she ever was. But she is even stronger than she was a year ago. As many of you know, Debby’s family is going through an incredibly rough time right now. Debby asked me to blog here today before any of the difficult events of the last few weeks occurred, and there are many topics I could have chosen to write about, but I find it most fitting to write about how much I have been encouraged by Debby’s transparency and resilience. Debby has been somebody that I can count on to be open and sincere about her feelings. Throughout the difficulties, she has been kind. Even to those who have not been understanding.

Debby blogs here at Live in Lavender Love tell her story. She writes the story, post by post, to record the joys and sorrows, the ironies and revelations, the mundane and the surprising in life. Few of us keep a record of these things in such a meaningful way as Debby is, here on this blogsite. It’s easy to talk about the good times, but not so easy to talk about the things that hurt. The lesson I have taken from Debby’s record of her experiences here, is that maintaining an open heart, no matter what your circumstances are or have been, is so important. Debby has shown me that keeping such an open heart is what enables us to continue living in harmony with ourselves and others after the storm has passed.