Forgotten

It is one thing to forget someone's birthday, but it is quite another to forget the birthday of your spouse.  After a number of consecutive evenings of drinking, why would I have been surprised that my special day would be forgotten.  Not just the morning, not even that evening... one would think that as I dashed off to the license bureau might have been an indicator. 

For the first time in 27 years, he forgot my birthday.  Is it really about me?  Even if it isn't supposed to be, I could not believe how heart broken I felt.  Even the next morning there was no comment.  I did come home to an apology that evening and there appeared to be honest remorse.  

I am trying to comprehend how much more hurt I can take.  I really struggled the other day as folks asked me if I had done anything special for my birthday and I could not admit that it had been forgotten.  It still stings.  Despite everything, it just feels like I cannot clear this fog and I don't want to be feeling this down.  There is so much to appreciate, but I can't appreciate with a joyful heart right now and that feels so wrong.

Praying for strength, discernment, patience and wisdom to know what needs to be done.  I just feel like I keep putting my heart out there to get squished over and over again.  If my heart belongs to Jesus, why does it keep getting hurt?

Why?

What is that attraction? What does alcohol do that is just so important?  Why does is become more important than the way one treats their family?  How can it command such loyalty to the detriment of professed loved ones? 

Things had seemed to be going so well.  Granted some issues and occasional drinking, but two nights now of heavier drinking?  Angry and insulting outbursts? What is going on?  How can this be?  Why?

I just don't understand.  Hope this is just a blip.
Will keep praying.
God bless.

Thankfulness

It was interesting to note on facebook someone mentioned listing 100 things that one would be thankful for and another mentioned listing the first 5 things that came to mind that one was thankful for.

I guess I am most thankful for the people that God has surrounded me with.  My support system one might say my Aunt and my very best friends.  I am thankful for my children.  They are great kids despite moments when they break my heart.  And I am thankful for my husband who loves me.  I am thankful for our time together - it will be 25 years this week.  I have learnt much from him and he has taught me a lot about myself.  So would would people make up most of my top 10?

I am thankful for the opportunity to work with youth.  I think they teach me more than anything else.  I am thankful for the opportunity to be part of a worship team and the music we share.  It is truly one of the most touching parts of my week.

I am thankful for many other things as I am truly blessed, but I believe that if I lost these other things that the people would make a difference in being able to manage that loss.  I am thankful for the things about life that people like my father and my grandparents have taught me and things that even my mother has taught me.

I am thankful for freedom to worship and attend church, the opportunity to participate in an amazing weekend last week.  I appreciate my good health, having a job, a home, freedom to worship, attend church or having a home despite the state of renovations at the moment.  I appreciate being able to capture the world in pictures and the beauty that I am sometimes blessed to see in those pictures.  I am thankful for healing and forgiveness and time and growth and the opportunity to realize that I have grown and I have a long way to go.  I am thankful for good changes and opportunities to learn.  I am very thankful that alcohol is playing less of a role in someones life.

I guess the biggest lesson is that I need to consider and remind myself is that God has provided me with much and that despite the challenges that life has brought, God has brought me through them by connecting me with special people and the right people at the right time.  So yes, there may be 100 things, there may be more from having daily showers to the comfort of a bus ride to work or food on the table, but I could not be thankful for all of this if I could not appreciate that God has provided all of this for me.  It is something that I have taken for granted when I have struggled with other things, but I am thankful that God is part of my life and I only wish that I could reciprocate what He deserves in appreciation.

Psalm 95

¹ Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
² Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song.

³ For the Lord is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
⁴ In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.
⁵ The sea is his, for he made it,
and his hands formed the dry land.

⁶ Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
⁷ for he is our God
and we are the people of his pasture,
the flock under his care.

 

God bless.

Unexpected Hurts

A dear friend who moved away posted how happily things are going for them and that  thankfulness is the feeling that their family is no longer where they were this time last year.

I fully understand that things were challenging for them, but I am so hurt by the comment.  It really saddens me that there can be no good seen in the time that was here.

I am not sure why I feel this so personally.  It stings.