Okay, least you get the false impression that I am a woman of leisure and I am accustomed to lavishness such as this, let me just say, it was a gift from my husband, for my birthday; this past November. Yes, I am just getting around to using it, and only because I am about to move out of state, and this would be my last opportunity to have him here to keep Noah while I relaxed enough to enjoy this gift. I also know how much he paid for it, and being frugal minded, I couldn't let it go to waste...
That being said; while enjoying the relaxing three-hour pampering, I happened to remember what the date was; March 19th. As I lay there on the massage table, I begin to reflect on the last sixteen years, thinking how life seems to have taken a wrong turn somehow. How that through a series of events out of my control, life took a direction that I could have never imagined.
Tonight, while Noah sleeps, the girls are at a youth conference at our church. Andrew and I sit among the stacked boxes that hold the contents of our life together, he is listening to music. The music of our past, music from another time and place, that of another world even, or so it seems looking back from this angle.
I close my eyes and remember when this music was new and fresh, when I was hearing it then...I could not have looked this far down the road of my life and imagined for a moment I would be here, now, like this...having faced the things I have faced along the journey...
Only God could see...and He wasn't telling. He was giving me just a little light for each step of the journey...that is all we get. A good thing I suppose, perhaps if we could see what was ahead; see the path that our lives would take; we may not want to make the trip...
But sitting here tonight looking back, I realize that every thing in life adds together to make the whole. I would not be the person I am now, (maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing!) if it weren't for ALL of it. I suppose I would still be me, the essence of me, but I would be different. I would have different beliefs, thoughts, goals, images of how I felt life was or should be...
We are a product of our experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Are we who we thought we would turn out to be? I am not the person that at eighteen I thought I would be at forty, and I suspect that many people would agree that they are not who they thought they would be either. I am fairly sure that most of us are not where we thought we would be today...Maybe there are those few, who had a vision and followed it all the way. But even they had unexpected life events that changed the course of life to some extent.
Pause...Station break...
Our wedding song just came on, so pardon me while I dance with my husband!
If you would like to hear the song, you can click on my playlist in the sidebar. I Will Always Love You by Taylor Dane.
...do you know how long it has been since I danced with my honey? Way to long...
Back to the scheduled post:
I lay on the massage table and begin to think of the events in my life that have shaped who I have become. We each have them; those events that we consider life changing or life altering. Some of us have those really wonderful life events that we look to: salvation, falling in love, having children. Then there are those other life events that aren't so wonderful...the events that throw us for a loop and knock us off our feet. The blows that we weren't expecting, the ones that catch us blind-sided...these usually include a loss of some kind. Death of a loved one, ending of a marriage, major illness, bankruptcy, loss of a career...whatever the event may be, it can change so much about you, the person you were, is sometimes no longer recognizable.
When Daren was killed, the days following his death were hard ones. I would say it took me several weeks for it to actually hit me what happened and the impact of it completely knocked me into another dimension. It was as though I was suddenly thrust into a life that was not my own. I remember thinking that I didn't eve want to be me anymore, because it was to painful to be me... I would have traded lives with just about anyone at that point...just so I didn't have to feel the hurt and pain I was feeling. I didn't want to experience that hollow feeling in my chest that was once my heart...It was as thought someone had cut a hole in my chest, and breathing was difficult. I tried to walk around holding my breath, because it hurt to bad to breathe. Sounds crazy? Not to someone who has experienced this kind of loss...
Sometimes we do things; make rash decisions, use poor judgment, develop bad habits all in an attempt to move away from the pain that this "life experience" is bringing into our lives. Sometimes we have to suffer from those bad choices. Which if it weren't for this elephant that suddenly crashed into our lives, we wouldn't have even had a part of. So because of all of this, we are now on a different path, with different emotions, needs, thinking...
Which can lead to places we never wanted to go, never thought we would see...It is how we navigate from this point that determines where we end up...where our lives go from there...
Some things are not our choice, they are decisions that seem to be made for us that bring us to places and crossroads...where in turn we must make decisions again...only with a different set of awareness and knowledge---different dreams for the new future we must find for ourselves, minus the part of us that has been lost, taken, stolen- ripped from our lives...we are the walking wounded. Some become the walking dead. We are just trying to find our way through this maze of life that we no longer recognize and no longer want to be a part...
Many times, we allow this thing to make us bitter and hollow. We can use this event as an excuse to quit. A reason to become a shell of the person that God placed us here to become. We can go the rest of our lives wearing it like a badge, letting the world know just how awful things are for us...
OR....
By the grace of God, and His mercy...By allowing Him to mold us, by allowing Him to take this horrible event and softening the clay that is our hearts, with His hands and power...
Wow! Sixteen years! On the one hand it seems as though it were only yesterday I was awakened to the horrible reality that you were gone...but on the other hand, it seems as though it were several life times ago...I was truly a very different person then... I find it hard to even think of that life as my own...
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