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November 11, 2013

By Joan Praver—Beit T’Shuvah Board Member/Volunteer

It is amazing the choices I’ve been given and the good luck I’ve acquired in the process. Most were more common sense than adventurous or just plain luck. Many chances I took have opened doors that not only gave me opportunities to learn but to consider myself blessed. Sometimes I’ve repeated an adage to those in my creative writing groups: “We are all the end product of the decisions we’ve made.” Sometimes I feel someone or something, like a higher power, has given me good advice. I had neither brother nor sister, but my parents instilled living by honorable standards and I never wanted them to be hurt and shamed by something I might do. My husband and I set the same values concerning our three songs. They were disciplined with love and understanding.

The biggest blessing I achieved was finding the man I married and somehow convincing him we were made for one another. That probably was my greatest challenge. I always believed if I put him on a pedestal and made him my king, he would consider me his queen. We certainly had arguments, but they never shook the foundation of our marriage. They merely cleared the air and made us more sensitive to one another’s feelings.

One of the best actions we both took was to encourage the dreams we both had along the way and to tolerate our volunteering for good causes we believed we could help, without being upset at the time taken away from home. It is almost impossible to count the number of anniversaries we’ve celebrated together…65 years and still going strong!

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