So much going on in my little head, where to begin??!?
For starters, I had another birthday. Shocking, I swear I just had one of those like 362 days ago or something like that! :) It was a great day, I was showered with many messages on social media, a few text messages and a phone call! I was able to spend the day with my husband and we crossed off every need on our kids school lists as well as purchased a few things for ourselves. The plan was for Matt to take the end of the week off so we could handle the school thing, and try to tackle a good portion of our "to-do" list at home. Well, that was the plan. My-oh My, plans change sometimes.
On my birthday, my husband ended up getting a terrible migraine. I tuned in and noticed something just wasn't right towards the end of the afternoon. He started to feel considerably worse, and we ended up calling it a day early. We had a hotel night away planned, for my birthday. So, I camped out on the bed and read my birthday wishes and surfed the web and Matt was able to have a place to rest. It beat driving a few hours home, it's definitely no fun to travel by vehicle when your head feels like its going to explode.
The next morning (yesterday), we slept as late as our bodies would let us. All the way til 8 o'clock! ;) Our hotel had a continental breakfast, so we enjoyed that before checking out. The "plan" was to go to the vikings training camp in the afternoon, however the afternoon practice got changed and we didn't want to have to commit to being back in Mankato that early to catch the morning practice. Especially with Matt not feeling well, we wanted to get some rest. By around noon, we made contact with Matt's mom, who had the three oldest kids and had taken them to the training camp. We found out that she was able to shake hands and MEET Adrian Peterson!!! She also got a ticket that allowed her to get an autograph from Teddy Bridgewater! If you know my husband, you might be aware that he bleeds purple and yellow. He is a Vikings fan through thin and thinner (sorry Vikes, I've struggled to stay on the bandwagon, but not my man!) To say he was bummed to have missed out on that opportunity is, well, and understatement. However, we were thankful that our kids (though they had no idea the magnitude or significance of this opportunity) were able to experience this day.
Today, my husband decided to go to work! It was sort of kind of pre-meditated. He has a list a quarter mile long of things he has half started or wants to start and another list of things that he has half started :). He also enjoys being a part of something BIGGER. He likes to have an impact in his workplace, he enjoys making it "better" and he knows the weekends are the days where there is the most traffic through his store. Oh yes, the work ethic of my husband, oh how it is one of those things I SURE DO LOVE ABOUT HIM!!! :) It can also be one of those things that I sure do want to yank him by his ear and say "ohhh honey dear, sugar pie.. maybe just this once you could follow 'the plan' and finish up a couple of those projects we've been working on since 1999" :) :)
Okay, so that is a little over the top. But it just really got me to thinking about "our plans". The plans we make and how we expect things to look. The way we paint the picture in our head and the despair we tend to have when things just don't turn out the way we anticipated. I was at The Global Leadership Summit a week ago, and one of the speakers talked about the way we respond when things don't happen according to our plan. It could be something as simple as sending a text message to someone and not getting a response right away. At first you may think, huh.. she must be busy. Then you start to wonder.. why is she not texting me back?? Am I not important enough to deserve- a response? You might even wonder... Did I do something wrong?? I bet if I was 'so-and-so' she would have text me back by now. Ohhh.... the ugliness. Am I the only one that has played that game?? We paint this "story" and start to speculate and wonder, not always giving the benefit of the doubt. The speaker from the summit talked about how she had this argument with her husband. They had gone to a cabin with the family for a week. She and her husband had committed to swimming with each other each morning before the kids woke up. Just spending that time together, doing something they once really enjoyed prior to having families and booming careers; swimming. The morning came, they went out swimming and the wife said to the husband "I'm so thankful that we decided to take this time to do this with each other. I feel so close to you". She was looking for some sentiment back, when the husband said "Yeah, water is good", and carried on. She felt slighted and not noticed. She wondered hmm.. maybe he didn't hear me right?? So she took one more stab at it. She said the same sentence to him, pouring her heart out and being vulnerable one more time. Again, he responded in the same way. She was ticked. Her blood was boiling and that is when she started painting the picture. She thought to herself, that is not how I expected that to go. I thought maybe we would share an embrace, have a 'moment' where our eyes locked and our love for one another would shine through brighter than a shooting star. Instead, she started to think. She wondered, "well maybe I just don't look as nice in a speed-o as I used to". She painted an ugly picture in her head of things her husband might have been thinking like, maybe he just didn't love her anymore? She thought, well this can go one of two ways. She could go in the house and not address the situation. When the husband would say "Hey babe, whats for breakfast?" she could just say "ohhh breakfast fairy?? Where are you breakfast fairy?? It's time for breakfast, dear sweet little breakfast fairy?" and the husband might scratch his head and think.... uh-oh, did I miss something here?
Has that ever happened in your house? Your hubby ends up in the dog house, and you've already shut the door on him before he even comprehended there was an issue??? I've been there. I've done that!
Instead of being passive aggressive, the speaker talked about how she chose to be really, REALLY vulnerable one more time. When they had made it back from their swim, she asked him what was up and wondered if he could hear her out there on the water when she was trying to have a 'moment' with him. The story goes on that he did hear her, however he was plagued with fear over a dream he'd had the night before. In his dream, his kids were swimming in the lake and there were several boaters going very fast and one of the boats was headed right towards them and he'd felt inadequate. He knew there would not be enough time for him to sweep all of his kids up and save them from this boat. He woke up with fear in his heart, that he would not be able to protect his family. He was battling those feelings and holding them in, and instead of sharing his feelings of inadequacy, he brushed his wife off.
Oh my, the power of this story for me. I've done this. All of it. I've painted the picture of how things are supposed to go. I've responded in some REALLY ugly ways when things don't turn out the way I hoped.
I really have just been feeling convicted. Mostly by looking back on this past 10 years and thinking of all the times I've cried and been just broken. I've sat in my own tears and pleaded, even when I wasn't really sure there was a God to be pleading to. I would wonder WHY?? I would beg for answers. When my dad passed away a little over 8 years ago, I was a broken little girl. I didn't think there was going to be anything good that would ever happen to me, and if there was a God, he sure didn't love me. I just kept thinking about my six year old brother, and how it just isn't right to take away his dad. It just wasn't fair, for my sister to not have her dad alive to walk her down the aisle some day. Life just was NOT fair. My dad was never going to meet any of my children, and this was NOT how life was supposed to go. This was not my plan.
Recently, just in reflecting on most of the ten years and smiling and laughing with my husband, who is honestly the best person God could have ever planted in my life. I've been able to look back and reflect and think, oh wow, look how far we have come. Look at all of the things that plagued me, made me sick and bitter, and now look at how that was part of the thread that God used to create and bring us to this uber duber, super place. It was no coincidence that when I found God, I found Love. God has strengthened my heart and instead of being bitter, my ability and desire to have LOVE and share LOVE with others has been multiplied.
Some things just really hurt while your in it. Ohhhh man, I wish I could say I didn't carry some hurt along with me still today from some of those things that happened long ago. I'll never understand why I had to watch my dad slip away, but I'm thankful that God held onto him until my whole family could get to the hospital, to be there, sharing stories about him and laughing. I will never understand why God chose Matt and I to both be gene carriers of hearing loss, but I know that He picked Matt for me, and I know that none of my five kids are a mistake. I don't think I will ever understand why some days life just feels hard. When my chest just feels like elephants have stampeded on me, I've been overlooked by friends, nobody has reached out to me in a while, my husband works too far away, the twins won't take a nap, and my five year old doesn't feel like anyone will like her at her new school because she is different. Oh man, it gets heavy. I don't like to be the carrier of the heavy stuff, sometimes I would rather keep it light, but oh boy, it gets heavy. I just have to remember that in that very moment, I cannot paint the picture.
I get it now, I think I really 'get' it. Well, honestly, for today I get it (because I am human and sometimes life just hurts. Like today, when I got the bill for when the gas company had to come out and fix our gas meter because my husband ran it over with a scissors lift...). God has used some of the hard times and circumstances that I've been in to shape my heart. He has planted qualities in me that I would not have without my life experience like, gentleness, clarity, compassion and wisdom beyond my years. At least those are some qualities I have been told I've been blessed with from some good friends :)
The BIG picture is going to be beautiful, but it's not mine to paint.
