Grateful

I've been feeling very blessed lately.  The other morning in the shower I was thinking about the past year.  I was recalling my decision to leave with Ava and separate from my husband.  As I remembered those sad months I felt overwhelmingly ill.  So much so that I had to tell myself I wasn't back there, I was here in this moment with my little family.  I'm so grateful we are together. 

I can't really put into words the sorrow and anguish of those months.  I didn't blog much and it was because I believe every post would have made you want to run out and buy a pint of ice cream and hole up in your house for days watching Seinfeld re-runs as the stains of Moose Tracks congealed on your jammie top.  It was that depressing. 

There are many things I've taken from that terribly hard experience.  It's true I don't like to think very much about the particulars of those months.  But one thing I think both my husband and I can agree upon is how much it has made us realize that you have to make every single moment count with the ones you love.  It's ironic because on the day we were sealed in the Logan Temple, many great pieces of advice were given to us.  Many of them are a blur to me, but I do remember that we were told not to ever take one another for granted.  We obviously ignored a lot of the council given that day and the blame is two-fold. 

Losing loved ones in my life should have already taught me this.  But there is something different about making the decision to distance yourself from someone you have been so intimately connected to.  For those relatives that passed away I had no control over them leaving.  But when it came to contemplating divorce it was very much in my hands. 

I still sometimes wonder at how in those months we came from being on the cliff's edge to being pulled back at the last moment.  When we lived apart my daughter took to singing, "Families Can be Together Forever."  I can't tell you how heart breaking it was to hear that, given our circumstances.  The times we spent together as a broken little family Ava would whisper in her Daddy's ear, "Tell Mama you love her."  I really truly believe that Angels whispered in her own ear during that time. 

The biggest miracle of all is the forgiveness that has flowed like a stream through our family's parched landscape.  It has made everything new and green again.  Finding the desire to forgive my husband was the first step for us.  I had little to no faith that our relationship could be healed.  It felt so broken.  I know that Our Savior was there for us in that dark hour.  I know that He softened my heart as well as my husband's. 

But still we are imperfect people and are destined to be so for the remainder of our mortal lives.  When I realized and accepted that My Savior wanted me, just as I am, that He was willing to carry me through anything with all my sins and mistakes it opened my heart.  I could no longer with hold my love and my forgiveness from someone who I blamed for so long because he had made mistakes just as I had.  And that made all the difference. 

The holidays are approaching and there is a calm peace in our home as we await the birth of our baby girl in December.  She is as much a part of this experience as anything.  If I could give her a symbolic name is would be Hope.  We are not rich.  We do not live in an ideal home.  Some nights we whip out the Ramen Noodles because that is what we have.  But it's all okay because we are together and we love each other.  I'm not sure I could ask for much more than that.