As the new year dawned, I was at one of the lowest points of my life. In the morning, I sat in a park and reflected on the ______ of the past year. After so much loss, I felt a need to give myself to the turning of ______- the snow-covered winter, ______ by the unfolding of new life in spring. As I walked home, my New Year’s resolution (决心) took ______ in my mind. My resolution became “Less sadness, more green” and I looked for ways to put it into action. Therefore, I ______ signed up for the Arnold Arboretum training program for volunteer school field guides.

Nancy, the program director, provided us with several days of ______. I buried myself into the spring curriculum on pollination (授粉). The thick notebook was ______ with information and diagrams about how trees and flowers produce the seeds that make sure the species will ______. While in training, I felt like being a student again.

After weeks of training, it was time to be a ______. When sixty third-graders piled off the yellow school bus for the Flowers Change class, I began to ______ outdoor learning experiences for them and gave them a day full of information, excitement, and surprises.

Throughout my first spring of ______ “Less sadness, more green”, my senses came alive and ______. I moved beyond wonder and astonishment about nature to a better ______ of it. I learned about the workings of a child’s mind along with the workings of trees and flowers.

I went on to be a proud and enthusiastic Arnold Arboretum field guide for four seasons. I ______ carry all that understanding and curiosity about what I don’t know each time I’m out in ______. And I still look at a flower through the eyes of a third-grader.

Lewis B. Smedes once said, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” For years Tom Anderson’s life was withered up (枯萎) by the memory of his _______ in an adventure that _______ the death of one of his classmates. He and his wife _______ after six years of marriage. Then the news about Tom _______. His wife Betty came back; he _______ a fine position.

One day he told me what had changed his life, “I used to think nothing could _______ the effect of what I had done. The thought of my _______ would stop me in the middle of a smile. It put a _______ between my wife and me. Then I had an _______ visit from the person I dreaded (恐惧) most to see — the mother of the college ________ who died.

‘Unless you ________, you cannot love.’ She said, “And without love, life has no ________.” She paused, and then said ________, “You are the one person ________ hasn’t forgiven Tom Anderson.” I found there in her eyes ________ to be the person I might have been if her boy had lived. For the first time in my life I felt myself ________ to love and be loved.”

Forgiveness is truly the ________ grace (慈悲), through which we ________   the freedom to learn from experience. But forgiving our shortcomings doesn’t mean ________ that they exist. On the contrary, it means facing them ________.

Around Thanksgiving, I flew to visit my family. A woman across the aisle________to push her suitcase into the tight overhead bin. When we landed, she was pulling, but the suitcase didn’t ________. I asked if I could help, ________ she replied, “It’ll come. I got it in, and there has to be a way to get it out.”

Her calmness and confidence inspired me, ________ me as a recipe for cultivating (培养) resilience (抗逆力) in life. Resilience is the ability to ________ challenging circumstances, refocus and find ways back into a positive life. The woman’s reaction to her ________ luggage was a beautiful example of cultivating resilience: “________ seeing crises as unsolvable problems. ”

The ________ situation might not be a “crisis”, but you know how ________ a plane aisle can be when everyone is trying to get off the plane. The woman never kept herself ________ by recognizing her problem had a solution.

The ________ reminded me of something that happened to me this past fall, when I took a solitary (单独的) hike along a rocky ocean path. I was enjoying myself in the fresh air, feeling________ as I picked my way from rock to rock and congratulating myself when I reached the end of the dock. Then I turned around and saw how ________ I had traveled, I felt myself slipping into nervous self-doubt. What if I ________ and twisted my ankle?

I took a deep breath and, like the woman on the ________, realized with relief that I could certainly make it ________. When I finally stepped back onto the shore, I not only felt ________, but also confident and accomplished.

When ________ plant seeds of “I can’t” in your mind, maybe you’ll remember the woman on the plane. Wherever life has brought you, consider that there is a(n) ________ to coming back to yourself. You have the power of resilience within you whenever you are ________ it.