Silver Lining

At the beginning of this year I was in a class and they said that one way to relieve stress and improve your happiness was to take the time to recognize beauty. For the next week, we were to try and recognize all the beautiful things that crossed our path, no matter how small and take a moment to appreciate it. While I often notice the beautiful things around me, I had gotten so focused on life and the 'next item on the to-do-list' that I had stopped taking the time to take those things in and appreciate them. Yes, I am talking about stopping and smelling the flowers. I love taking pictures of nature and I had stopped doing photography, because you must slow down in order to do so. Yet this one class assignment helped me put on the brakes and really changed my outlook to it all.

Months after that class was over, I still found myself noticing the small things. In fact, when I was having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (like the title of a beloved childhood story), I would seek out those beautiful things around me...even if it meant I was searching for some time. I knew they were there and I just needed to take the time to find them. What I found was that I began doing this with all aspects of my life. If I was having a bad day, I began looking for my silver lining...no matter how small. Did you know it's virtually impossible to stay in a bad mood if you are looking for the beauty/silver lining in each moment, because if you're looking, you will find it and finding beauty and the good in your day makes it all seem a little brighter. Like the silver lining of a cloud that seems to mirror whatever small amount of sun it finds. It illuminates it and magnifies it.

I realized that assignment had changed me for the better after I went to the beach recently. I had a most wonder and magical day and videos and photos were stored on my phone. My battery was dead at the end of the day and my son ended up loosing his shoes, which led to a dead car battery and sadly resulted in a lost phone with magical moments captured on it. At first I was devastated. That would normally be enough to sour my mood and my outlook on the day. But I realized that though there were those crazy things that happened at the tail end of the day, the day was still in fact magical and loosing my phone did not take away from that. So I reminded myself of all that had transpired and was grateful for the day and the few pictures I had uploaded (and grandma's camera that captured a few more).

The silver lining comes when you realize that though it's a bump or hiccup in the road, the road is still beautiful. Like today, I'm terribly anemic (on the verge of needing a blood transfusion per my doc) and I woke up to my two year old throwing up all over me and the rug (silver lining: it wasn't all over my new mattress) and my 5 year old who had Scarlet Fever (silver lining: doctor gave him his choice of two stickers, he chose two and gave one to his little brother), but the silver lining is that I get to be their mother. They are so sweet and bring so much joy to my life and to every day and I get the honor of being called their mother. So on days like today, when there is defiantly a bump in the road, I stop and rejoice in those moments we were able to laugh and be silly and play and enjoy being a family. Because all those small moments really add up to one amazingly blessed life!

A Dream Grieved

Two years ago this month, my husband and I split. I tried to make things work, but his choice was drugs above all and I could not except that or the other women in his life. For over 7 months though, I have not seen him. He's locked up and will be until my children are adults. What I find myself grieving these days is not him, but the dreams that will never be fulfilled. I dreamed I would be able to raise my children, with their biological father. I'm done having kids and he's in jail until they're grown - dream dead. I dreamed that I would raise my children in their own home, with stability and a strong and loving family - that dream will never be fulfilled as I had dreamed it would. While I will finalize my divorce soon, the dreams die with the marriage and there is a sorrow and grief one cannot imagine (unless lived it out themselves), that accompanies such a loss.

But one thing has been a constant theme lately. I cannot move forward holding onto the past. I can't dream new dreams if I continue grieving what once was or what once could have been. My former dreams will never be fulfilled and so I must except that reality and dream new dreams. As Walt Disney would say, "Keep Moving Forward." And as Ian Somerhalder said, "You don't always win, but every time you lose, you get better." Both quotes depend on you making the choice to get better, the choice to move forward.

So, while I may not have new dreams yet, I'm finally ready to lay the old ones to rest. After all, you can't move forward if you're chained to your past.

CT

Today I got the results from my last CT Scan. Turns out I have new spots that lit up. :(  (For a 2x cancer patient that is REALLY bad news). I was pretty sure I would light up, based on how I've been feeling, but that fear has been confirmed. Now I wait to see if it grows in the next 3 mos. and if it does it will be biopsy time. Waiting sucks. So does news like that. It explains why I have felt so tired though....

Some Much Needed Perspective

It's been over 5 months since I prayed and laid it all down. So much has happened. All these trials I have experienced, all the heart ache and turmoil, my husband's choices and the consequences of those choices, all those things erupted like a volcano, descending hot lava upon my life, destroying everything. And the lava continues to burn. But the lava has begun to cool and though I know it will take some time, I know it is a process and one that I am in the midst of.

When wave after wave of life beat down upon, God finally answered my cry for rest and lo and behold, my sister and her husband paid for me to go to Hawaii with them. Kid free. Just me. The beauty that my God had created. And REST.

One of the days I was in Hawaii we went to hike the volcano. We stopped at the spot pictured above on our way to the volcano. One thing God spoke to me was that the trials of my life may feel like lava, continuously burning, but the lava will eventually cool as long as I let it soak in the Living Water, where it will be cooled. And once it's cooled He will restore my life. I looked around this beautiful island and meditated on the thought that lava, something so destructive, was the very foundation for such beauty. Though my life has been gut wrenching and painful far beyond words, God gave me rest in Hawaii and restored my hope. Though I wouldn't choose all these heartaches and trials, God knows it's just the foundation I need for His future plans to grow into something beautiful.

Isaiah 61:3

To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called trees of righteousness, The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."