Light bulbs!

They're coming on in my head. Suddenly I've having realizations and "ah-ha" moments left right and center, things that were uncertain before are suddenly becoming clear and it feels good!

Now I've got all these insights and I'm shrinking myself so to speak, and equipped with a lot of hindsight, I can see where my life went off the tracks and how things got as bad as they did. Sometime in the past 5 years we got distracted by the major life changes we were undergoing, graduation, marriage, having a baby, and we got side tracked. Our focus got muddled and we really stopped being the couple we started out as. And then, sometime in the past 2.5 years, life got heavy, really heavy. And it got dark, and sad. Our already blurred vision went out all together. We stopped being that original couple that started it all, and worse yet, we lost sight of each other all together. And all we could see was our own darkness. Grief. Sadness. Isolation. Anger. Depression. Anxiety. Fear. Alienation. It overtook us. Is it any wonder we drifted from one another? Did we ever stand a chance.

Thank God, and I mean that literally, that we were given a second chance at life and love, long before we ever knew we'd need it. Thank God that He saw the drift happened before we ever felt it, and that he called out to me when he knew he could reach me (after Everett's passing), so that I'd already be holding on to Him when we needed Him the most (the crumbling of our marriage). Its one of those things you can only see in hindsight. I thought when I found Christ (or He found me that is), in those months following Everett's death, that it was my big saving moment, I thought I was at my lowest and he was lifting me up then. But now, looking back I can tell that Everett's death provided a door of opportunity, where I was vulnerable and susceptible and in need of comfort badly enough that I would listen and let God reach me, and that that needed to happen when it did so my faith would have time to bloom and grow and mature enough to sustain me during the REAL challenge of holding my life and marriage together (by God's grace). See, losing Everett was painful, but my love for him has been unwavering, and I know his love for me is unchanged. The physical parameters of our relationship are of course greatly changed, but the love between mother and son isn't effected by death. God's love helped me cope, but its greater purpose then was to prime me for the next big challenge I'd face.

Losing Elvis would be a horse of a different color. The breaking down of a marriage is a different sort of death and the dynamics aren't at all the same. The love between husband and wife is not designed to survive if the marriage doesn't. We NEEDED God then, in a way we never did before. And truthfully, if I didn't already have great faith and some knowledge about how God works and what He wants from marriage under my belt, I might not have found it out in time to make a difference. If I wasn't already a woman of faith, if I didn't have a good church and a great small group, if I didn't have Christian influences and a personal relationship with Jesus, I don't know that I would have even tried to save my marriage. And where would I be now?

Some time in the past five years our train went off the tracks, and God saw it happen and put himself in place, in a perfect place, so that when we needed it the most, He could bring us safely back to the rails. And He did. And because Jesus is the light of the world, and because we believe this, we suddenly can see where before we were in the dark. And I know now that life got away from us.

Katie and Elvis the couple became Katie and Elvis nurses, then parents, then parents again, then grieving parents, then grieving individuals. Then sad individuals. Then lonely individuals. Then angry individuals. Then lost individuals. So far from where we started. But now a new opportunity presents itself.

Start again.

Focus now on the life we have, not the life we should have had, or wish we had, but the life we have, right now, tangible and real and God given. I'm quite guilty of being distracted by my wants and my wishes that I can't truly enjoy the blessings that are already in place. And then today a new light bulb went off. Start being "Katie" again, start focusing on making myself more like who I was before I got so lost in life's sadness and tragedies. Start being happy again. Start being unique again. Start being lively and vibrant. Start being a woman as well as a mother. Start being a wife as well as a caretaker. Start being a friend as well as a partner. I want to start adding some more dimensions to me and this life. I'm at a place where we can start reclaiming ourselves again, and that's just what I want to do.

The lights are on.

We're out of the dark and I can see where it all went wrong, I can also see how it can be made so much better. I'm plotting a course for a new path, a new life where with God's loving guidance, Elvis and I can grow together again and become "Katie and Elvis" the couple again, happily and passionately in love once more. Our marriage can thrive, our kids can thrive, our faith and thrive, and never ending opportunities for love and happiness will stretch out before us in ways we've never known before.

Exciting!

Katie