This time last year, I was watching a beautiful baby girl in our home to supplement our income and trying to figure out how to continue to do so with the return of painful chronic illness symptoms and the need for a joint replacement surgery so I could hopefully walk pain free.  In February, I made a hard choice and once again said good bye to an income in favor of my health and underwent surgery.   We were able to begin hosting non-English speaking students that attended a program at a local college as a way to supplement our income shortly thereafter, which we hoped would help even things out.   After a few health scares, including several failed EKGs, stress tests, and being diagnosed with narcolepsy, by summer time I was feeling much better once we found the right combo of drugs and exercise.  The kids were growing fast, learning new skills and amazing us each day.  Zeke was now swimming like a pro and Bo was writing and near reading, both of them tackling skills we never thought they would be able to due to their specific challenges in the past.  Caleb was acting on stage, performing for anyone even when off stage.
The year was full of ups, and downs.  Our hearts got broken, repeatedly, and are still working on being fixed.  Appearances aren’t all that they seem, a tough lesson to learn at any age.  Though an importance lesson, one we learned, and I hope I helped others learn this year, was to never give up on someone you love.  Before the big heartbreak of my year, I got the biggest heart mend of my life.  Someone I love dearly, someone I have always wanted more from, prayed earnestly for, wished would be a bigger part of my life, choose to be.  Despite the conditions in which it began, I am grateful to say, this year I am proud to say my dad is being a dad.  He’s calling to check on me for once. Heck the fact he’s calling is a new thing for us.  He’s had a tough year, died a few times, still has a tough time ahead of him, but I know that he knows I’ll be there for him when he needs me, and so will Dean the boys, just like I would have even if he hadn’t become more interested in us.  (But it sure is nicer to do so knowing it’s more reciprocal.)
Its funny now as I write this, I am reminded how I had a double standard even still, in regards to the one who hurt me this year.  But then I’m reminded, I have not given up on him. I have forgiven, and I still care for him, but I also know that I have the same desires for him that I had for my father. The same wishes, that deep down he would change. That he would have choosen differently. That he would still make different choices in the future, on behalf of the women he involves himself with, so that he doesn’t break their hurts, knowingly or unknowingly.  I am the same person.   I still naively believe a person can change.  And sadly that’s why I got my heart so broken this year. I wanted so much to believe in some one, believe that what I saw was not the truth, that what I felt in my heart and what I knew was true that made me so afraid was not true, because if it was then I needed to do something before someone got hurt.  In the end, I wasn’t so naive and I learned that people do change, and that person is me.
I still believe that people can change. I know they can, I have my dad to thank for showing me that people can change.  I really have God to thank for that, because I know that while Dad’s got a long way to go, I know that God’s doing something big and he’s answering prayers every day, even when I don’t feel like He is or see Him doing anything.   I’d like to think that maybe Faisal’s encounter with us will help him change somehow. Maybe help him see he can’t lie his way through life, innocently or not.  But if not, it helped me learn a lot of lessons about life.  I am learning a lot every day still, a lot about myself.   Things I hope to impart to my kids and others so that they don’t get hurt one day too.  Lies hurt.  The truth also hurts.   Failing to see the truth also hurts sometimes even more.   I am afraid we live in a world where we are a little too comfortable and we need to stop being so naive, about ourselves and others.   I now know I couldn’t make someone else change, I am done trying to make others change. I am the game changer now.  If I can’t change for the better, then I may as well give up.
I can’t judge others and expect them to change their ways if I’m not willing to use the same approach to my weaknesses.  I admit my flaws, frequently, ask my husband!  In this coming year, I’ve got a lot to look forward to.  By the end of the year I’ll have three boys in school full time, and I don’t know what they will mean for me.   This time last year I had no plans to be going to school myself, and yet I am.  I’ve survived a lot this year.  I’ve had a lot to fight for; my family and for myself, and some days my whole world and for you.  Sometimes I just fight to make it til morning.   I ended the year with another surgery, but am on the mend, slower than I’d like as always.   I don’t know what I’ll be doing in a month, 2 months or 6 months. If I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that God’s timing trumps my own. I have a few more weeks til I’m supposed to start back at classes at CCU, but today as I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying the quiet morning with my son and the quiet free hour or so this afternoon with nothing but chores to occupy my time, I don’t wonder if this time of simplicity could last longer.   Ironically, earlier as I cleaned a toilet, the words, “your beautiful in his eyes” and “he’s got bigger plans for you” blared out from the Christian radio station.   I know these things to be true, yet as I go through the motions of these daily menial tasks of just getting through the day to day it makes me wonder what’s next and when I’ll know when I’ve gotten there and when it’s time to step out in faith to the next thing and what that will be and look like. Daring to ask those questions is insane, because when I do, my life takes crazy spirals and my life is finally starting to feel normal.   So I guess it’s as good a time as any to ask God what’s next huh?  So get ready, cause I asked, so chances are…if you ask Him what’s next…..the sky is going to start falling….or maybe just some black birds! 😉
