I want this to be a place for me to celebrate the miracles and blessings that come into my life. I sometimes find myself dwelling on negativity and I don't like myself when I go to that place. I think it is ugly and hurtful to others. I am not trying to write a humorous blog, and I definitely don't want to complain here. Enough of that in RL. But, at times, there may be funny events or funny ways of looking at what otherwise may be a bad situation. And at other times, there may be situations or events that happen that I haven't found the blessings or miracles, but will share and revisit when I discover the blessings and miracles.
A little about myself. I am the average woman, trying my best to have a positive effect on my world. I have been married over 20 years to a wonderful, patient man. We have 4 children and live in a cold, rural area of the east coast. I work for a non-profit. I like reading, running, and old movies. I volunteer at my church and in my community. Hmmmm... what else.... the rest of my family lives a day's drive away, so we see them a few times a year, but that's it. So now you know what is important to me. God, family, knowledge, volunteering, and fitness.
I believe that we can find blessings in even the worst situations. We just may have to look for them, or wait for the situation to pass to find the blessings. For example: In the summer 3 years ago, I had finished my MS in literacy and began running in earnest again. I was a runner in high school, but had set myself a goal of running a marathon before I turned 40. Those of us who are a certain age, know the need for these "before I'm 40" goals. After a few months of gradually building up to a 3 mile run, I discovered, much to my surprise, that I was pregnant! Now this threw me for such a loop because our oldest child was a high school senior and our youngest was a 6th grader. I was terrified and swore my husband to secrecy not to tell the family until Christmas. I didn't want to be pregnant. We were not in a place in our lives for babies anymore. I was in shock and wanted to be OK with it before I told them. At this time, I was in a small Bible study with a few friends and we were reading Ester together. If you know the story, one of the themes is that God has a plan that He reveals on his schedule. I kept wondering, what is His plan for our life with a the new baby? Then the day before Thanksgiving, I started spotting. It is still hard to write about it now. We told the children and went to the hospital to get checked. They sent me home on bed rest. On Thanksgiving, I miscarried and was devastated. I was only 6 weeks along and hadn't even accepted the baby yet. I kept questioning why. What's the plan?
After the doctor cleared me, I began running again. It was my therapy. I had a hard time coping through the holidays on restricted activity. My grief and guilt was eating me up. Slowly, I began increasing my distances and speed. I was no where near as fast as I was as a teen, but I sure could run farther! As my running improved, so did my mood and outlook on life. I ran a 10 mile race that May and was scheduled for a 15K that summer. A week after the 10 miler, I discovered, you guessed it, I was pregnant again! I was very cautious, had the go ahead from my midwife, and continued to run through the pregnancy. We now have a toddler, a 14 year old, an 18 year old, and a 20 year old. Life is interesting. I believe that the first pregnancy had 2 roles in God's plan. First, to give me the power, empathy and knowledge to support another friend who miscarried last year. Second, to prepare our hearts and minds for the baby born to us.
So that is the hidden blessings and miracles of the really difficult, the most difficult, time in my life. I couldn't see it while I was suffering. But it was there.
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