bittersweet celebrations- part III

Saturday we had a really nice 53 degree day. I took all the boys to the park. It felt like more of a jacket day than a coat day. I pulled out my brown leather jacket that matched with the boots I was wearing. I hadn't wore that jacket in a while.... almost a year to be exact.

As the kids were running and playing, I started to examine the things in my pocket. The things in the picture above. These scraps represent the last days of my marriage and my life as I knew it.

*The receipt from the Pizza Hut where we all went out to eat after spending the morning at the office with Brad.

*The check out slip from the library when I was still homeschooling the older boys. We use to go every week and check out all kinds of books and Bill Nye the Science Guy DVD's. I don't think we've been to the library in months now.

*The ticket from the last movie Brad and I went to see together. It was Spiderwick. I remember trying to hold Brad's hand in the movie. We always held hands in the movies. He felt so far away. I think I knew in my heart what was going to happen, but I didn't want it to. I didn't want him to leave. I don't remember why or what for, but I remember he yelled at me in the car on the drive home. At that point, I could have counted on one hand all the times he had ever raised his voice to me in 13 years--so that stuck out. I never want to see that movie again.

*A paper with the date and time I had written down for a luncheon in April that we never got to attend. Another paper with the name of a doctor I needed to go see for tests.

All that seems like a million years-- and just a few days ago-- at the same time.

I've come a long way in the last year.

Most mornings I don't wake up needing to remind myself just how much has changed--why I am alone or why I feel so tired or why I have to get the kids off to school. I just live my life as it now. Some mornings, yes--I still need reminding. Those mornings are hard.

I say this in all sincerity: Life is really good for me. I am so, SO thankful for that. I didn't think I would live through the emotional and physical pain of January through April of last year---but I did. And I still have hope. I have plans. I have a life. I have faith in myself being made able through Christ. I have my sweet children. Things don't seem as innocent as they once were, of course. I will forever have to live knowing the depth of pain one person is able to inflict on another when they did nothing to deserve it. I live knowing the sting of loss and the feelings of loneliness. The frustration of limitations. But hope and faith and gratitude are these amazing attributes that helped me to carry all of it then, and continue to help me carry all of it now. I feel endowed daily with more patience and ability than I could ever produce on my own. I still struggle. I still have problems I need to work on and work through. I still have days when I would rather just pull the covers over my head in bed and cry. But I get up any way, and get to work--knowing that I am not alone in my struggles nor unique in my trials.

I don't like to ponder on what more I might be asked to endure in mortality. I would like to think I've paid my dues and that the rest of my life will be bright and sunny. But the most amazing thing I've learned through the trials of these past years is that, even if it isn't---*I* can still make my own sunshine. There will always be something to be grateful for and to look forward to. Sometimes it might be as simple as the ability to stand, or a certain smell, or a particular shade of blue I see, or a memory that makes me laugh---but there will ALWAYS be something. Heck!--if nothing else, I can be grateful that I'll get to leave this life eventually!

I wish everyone could know this. That there is always hope. That answers do come eventually. I hope that, if you need it to, this knowledge will settle over you and permeate every inch of your heart. You are not alone.

It's true.

and that's all I've got to say about all that.

Thank you so much for listening.

*What was something you learned about yourself in the last 12 months?*