rude awakening

For those that know me they may or may not understand what I am sharing.  The last 6 months have been very traumatic and overwhelming at times.  I kept praying for strength and to see if God would somehow guide me to whatever I am suppse to learn from all the challenges.  I finally had a small glimmer of light this last weekend.  It dawned on me that I had been praying for help with my materialism and self centeredness.  I have been unable to drive, go shopping by myself.  I have been unable to shop which has been a rude awakening for me.  I also realized what a job my ego has gone thru.  The one physical attribut I had was my legs.  I always had nice skin and my legs were always shaped nicely and skin tone was great.  Well....I have horrible scars on my legs, especially the right one from the shingles and various rashes I had during in the hepatitis treatment.  When I realized that God had or was in the process of answering my prays I found my discontentment and self esteem in proper perspective.  It was much easy to accept what was going on in my life.  God answers my prayers one day at at time.  I continue to do physical therapy on my leg with improvement everyday.  I smile as there are days that I am really stretching to see that improvement.  I also have gone thru some real emotional turmoil over the death of 2 ladies from church.  One was sudden and unexpected and one had cancer and was expected.  I had some really difficult emotions over the lady that died unexpectedly.  I was basically on deaths bed about 2montjs ago only to pull out of and and working each day at trying to improve my life day by day.  Praying that I will be a shining light for God and that my living will not be in vain.  My friend that died suddenly was an avid christian that anyone that knew her misses her dearly and her reassuring christian love towards other.  I try to be a blessing but there are so many days I fail miserably.  All I know is I was allowed to live and she wasn't.  It is up to me to live so that my living will not be in vain.  I have been wearing my emotions on my sleeves lately with tears right there almost all the time.  I need to be loving and acceptable of me each and evry day.  I know I have a long way to go to totally recover, knowing that I may not ever reach that point.  I need to allow myself to feel the basket of emotions that have surfaced over the last week.  I can laugh, cry, sing, sleep, or do what it is I need to do at any given time to survive.  Thanks for alowing me to rattle on.  Felt this was a safe place to let go.  thanks  julia