I had the privelege of being involved in a peace circle this week where one of the questions was, “Who or what makes you wise?”
I don’t really think I am all that wise – I mean, I have certainly been humbled by the missteps and mistakes that I have made, but if I were wise, wouldn’t I have known better than to make them in the first place? So, I gave some real thought to the question before I responded.
As I played through the people and experiences in my life in the movie in my mind, I tried to focus on where I had experienced the most growth, the deepest changes in my thinking and belief. There have been a number of experiences that have defined me, but nothing has impacted me more than the past two years of my life.
Two years? Seriously? How can that much time have passed?
The thing is – it isn’t mistakes or the events or even the betrayal that is where the significant learning has come from. It is the journey.
To be more specific – it has been in surviving the journey.
I almost didn’t. I actually didn’t want to. I prayed and prayed for God to save my marriage and to keep my family intact. Then I prayed that if it was not God’s will that my marriage be saved, that He give me the strength to accept whatever came next.
I have not felt strong. I have never felt acceptance of what has happened. The grief is always just underneath the surface. But, just recently I have started to think about being grateful. I have to work at it and it does not come easy, but I can find at least one thing every day to be grateful for. Sometimes, it’s as simple as being grateful for the time I have to make lunches for my kids each day or being able to pick my son up from school. Sometimes it is being able to make dinner.
And sometimes it is just being grateful that it doesn’t hurt as bad today as it did when it started.