"It's like putting a puzzle together. You have to take all these little good things you're finding out about yourself and put them together into the picture you want. You have the power and control. Paint your picture."

It takes lot of time and healing to place the right puzzle peices to form the picture we want. Along the way, we will keep and then later discard peices that don't fit. Some of them will fit for a while and then we must discard them when we have a new peice that fits better.

That's how we grow. At the risk of using the mirror analogy ad nauseum, it's like a young girl looking at herself in a mirror. Over the years, as she grows, the little girl disappears and a teen appears. The teen goes away and suddenly, there is a beautiful young woman looking out of the mirror. The changes were inperceptable to her moment by moment, but over time, oh what changes transpired.

So it is with our healing. As long as we keep working and not give up, we will someday look in the mirror and see the person we want looking out at us...even if for just a moment. Remember the term "growing pains"? It takes pain to reinvent yourself and do what you must toward healing. But it's worth it, even you your happiness is fleeting. The next time joy returns, it will stay longer.