In a season where I was at least aware enough to know things were bad, I did this...
I wanted the family I had, I wanted the man I was married to, I wanted a life.... I didn't want the sentence of maybe 2-5 years and I would at least be more able to function daily. I wanted to live. I didn't want the lack of conscience or difficulty with attachment or the minimum capacity to feel remorse to win.
I wanted to live. I had lost so much of life already, I didn't want to lose anymore of the present and certainly not the future. I didn't know how to break free from all that entangled me but I wanted to more than anything else.
So I prayed. I entered into a conversation with God and I simply said that I put a "yes" before Him. That even in the days when I would be saying "no" to the hard road that was in front of me, I told Him I wanted Him. I wanted whatever it would take. I wanted to enjoy life, I wanted to live with my kids and my husband, I wanted Him.
I put a "yes" before Him. In my mind I was laying down my will to His no matter what the cost. I was willing to look at whatever I needed to, be told whatever I needed to hear and do whatever needed to be done.
I was desperate. Seriously there wasn't another viable option. Maybe for me that is what it took.
There were things out of my control. There are still things out of my control. There are days I handle that well and there are days where I don't. So how do I live understanding the things I couldn't do and understanding the things I could...
Here's a few things that in the hardest of times jumped started a life and here are a few things that keep that life going....
On a recent weekend that was proving to be full of difficulty and sadness I took our two youngest kids to the park, I placed our four year old on my lap and put my six year old on the swing next to me... and we rode those swings and giggled until my legs and my ribs hurt.
The circumstances didn't change but I did. I couldn't change the circumstances. So I changed me and loved on my kids. We laughed until it hurt. It was in the simplicity of those moments where we lived. We can live. I can't dictate or determine what life will be but I can live.
There are days I listen well to the language of love and its ways and there are days my heart hurts and my ears fall deaf to the words that under gird me and keep me strong. I think back to the days when I put a "yes" before His throne. It wasn't a "yes" but it needs to happen this way, or that... it was a "yes." It was a plea. It was a cry that said I don't have 2-5 years to lose please help. I want to live.
Going back to that simple declaration help me on the days where the circumstances and situations what me to feel their roar. I wanted to live. I wanted to love. I wanted to laugh.
There are many things I can't do anything about, but today... today.. I am alive.. I can live... Today I can choose to love whether it be stranger, friend, or child. Today I can tilt my head back look up into the Carolina blue sky and laugh. Why? Simply because I can.
Learning that in joy I find strength, learning that the torment and the agony of mental pressure that filled my days is but an echo ... a remembrance... a place where I set a marker up and say from that place I have journeyed forward.
Whether that marker is from the day and times that resound forth being knit back together and dry bones walking, or that marker is from yesterday when tired and sad I was held up by friends... I set markers along the way to remind me that I am not ever left alone, that God is the lifter of my head, and that the echos of laughter surround my days both past and present.
When all is said and done I want my journey to be full with the reality of a life lived. I understand that there are days I need to remind myself of that, and go get on a swing, or hold a pudgy toddler's hand, or sit and take the moments I get to talk to my older children. Each moment holds within it the capacity for joy, finding that joy is the discovery.
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