Sunday Ramblings-- Gratitude

First I want to say 'Thank you' to my sweet friends and family who have contacted me after the last post updating our lives.  I so appreciate your prayers on our behalf, as well as my husband's and I appreciate your generosity, too.

I've decided that I vacillate between four emotions throughout the past several days:
Anger, Hope, Indifference, and Compassion (but not in any particular order.)

However, I feel more hopeless with each passing day.  I don't know if that's reality settling in and preparing me for life as a single mom, or perhaps opposition running it's course to deter me from my goal to work at keeping my end of the marriage intact.  (Holy abundance of prepositional phrases, Batman!)  The kids have stopped asking for their Dad.  (I don't know if that's a positive thing or not).  We have all settled into a 'new normal' and are adjusting much better this week.

Can you see my dilemma?  I'm trying so very hard to discern God's will for me through promptings and impressions I feel from the Spirit.  But I have so many conflicting feelings...

I am becoming stronger in almost every area of my personal life.  (Physical health, spiritual closeness to my Heavenly Father and Savior, financial independence, and home improvement/maintenance.  I mean, come on-- how many women can start a fire for roasting hot dogs/smores with a few pieces of wood, newspaper and vaseline-soaked cotton balls?  I rock, I know.)

I say almost every area.  Emotionally?  As you can see, I'm all over the map.  Today I nearly broke down in church, but held it together until I got home.  But in the end, surely I will become more resilient, as well as compassionate through my trials.  No matter what the outcome entails.

Church was very uplifting.  I felt so grateful for the privilege of partaking of the sacrament.  It gives me renewed conviction to keep my promises to the Lord, and it provides a time for introspection.  (I have a lot of weaknesses and I have never been a perfect spouse or parent, or anything else, for that matter...and either way, I need to improve many things about myself.)

The lessons in Relief Society and Sunday School had personal, poignant lessons for me.  I'm trying to soak all those truths in and figure out how to apply them to me.

I received some bad news today-- another good friend and mother of one of my violin students attempted suicide last night.  I am so very sad.  She brought me in two meals last week.  I miss her, and hope she will get better soon.  Can the millennium please come a little sooner?  Pretty please?

How wonderful the Gospel of Jesus Christ is!  How kind and loving my neighbors and friends are!
And I love my children so much.  I am in awe at their uniqueness and strength.

I do not know what our future holds, but I am trying to not fear whatever that may be.  My God is an 'on-time' God.  He knows what I need, when I need it.  One day at a time.

"In the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you have help from both sides of the veil, and you must never forget that.  When disappointment and discouragement strike... you remember and never forget that if our eyes could be opened, we would see horses and chariots of fire as far as the eye can see riding at reckless speed to come to our protection."   ( ~ Jeffrey R. Holland, In Times of Trouble, March 1980)

Swimming in Deep Waters

I sleep alone.

It's been 13 days since the Mister left our family, suddenly and painfully.

I have been mourning our marriage, and our memories.  It's as if he erased 16 years of our lives.  And it hurts.

My ward has been exceptionally supportive and compassionate.  My neighbors, friends and family (my in-laws, too) have been life savers.

It feels like he died.  My house is full of cards, flowers, gifts, and meals.  Yet I have no grave to visit; except the other side of our bed.  Which lies empty and undisturbed.

The kids had a rough first week.  Anxiety attacks, teachers calling from school because the innocent kindergartener won't stop crying in class.  The 11-year old who comes home from school every day and has to be held like a baby on my lap for long periods of time.  My oldest feels responsible for Dad leaving.  He sees the school counselor regularly.

It's as if my neatly stacked apple cart has been dumped over, and the order and predictability of my life is scattered in all directions.  The energy previously used for other things is rerouted to gathering, cleaning, sorting, and restacking the apples.  Our lives are fraught with disorder, confusion, despair, and loneliness.  I focus only on surviving one day at a time.

Last Saturday, I couldn't get out of bed.  I wanted my life to be over, for the pain to stop.  The despair and feelings of betrayal were thick and wide.  I only had 4 reasons to get up that day, and they were all hungry.  So finally at 11:00, I made breakfast.

"Mama, can you make the waffles that Daddy makes?" she asked hopefully.

I smiled weakly, and made sweet rolls.  (He never used a recipe, but made the best weekend breakfasts that I can't begin to replicate.)


I find great comfort in the knowledge that God loves me, and through the love of my Savior and Healer, Jesus Christ, we can have our broken hearts healed.  God counts each of my tears, as well as my children's.  There will be more 'Saturdays', but I will get through them.