Rearview Mirror : Part I

I am starting to realise, just how often, the things in our lives that seem to be the worst, God takes them and uses them in His good and perfect plans for us.  When I look over the last year of my life, I am very, very much reminded of the famous poem Footprints - I can see that at the times I felt most low and lonely, the times I wondered where God was and even before I had re-accepted Him into my heart, there He was.

Carrying me.  Planning for me.  Preparing a journey for me and taking each tear drop, every ounce of agony, and turning it to His purpose.  What seemed so painfully unclear and confusing, becomes so clearly part of His purpose when I look at it with the benefit of hindsight.  Let me tell you a story...
2011 had begun with a BANG...with the ultimate and final end of my marriage.  I was devastated...not because I had lost "the man I love", but because I felt I had failed.  As a wife, but mostly, as a mother.  I had failed to give my children the "perfect nuclear family" I so desperately wanted them to have.  

After struggling for years to repair a marriage that never should have begun and had descended into emotional warfare and sexual abuse (from my spouse to me, never to my children, thanks be to God), I finally accepted that it was not a battle I could win.  Neither of us loved the other.  In truth - with the benefit of hindsight and having finally found real love - I don't think we ever truly did.  I told him to either commit to being happy with us, or leave.  He left.  

I cried for three days for the pain I saw in my sons, and then moved on to rejoice in the incredible lightness that came from being able to sleep without fear of sexual demands, dress without fear of ridicule and speak my mind without fear of rebuke.

Two weeks after my husband left my home, I had a camping trip with a good friend and her husband and children planned.  Before we left, she announced to me that she was in the early stages of pregnancy with their fourth child, and I was happy for her and with her - I knew the decision to have another child had not been an easy one for them, and was thrilled to see them preparing to welcome another baby into their family.

I can see now, how my Lord was preparing for me the friends and network I would need to get through everything I would face this year.  He has surrounded me with many of His disciples, who were right here ready to guide me when I accepted Him into my heart.

Not long after this, I met the Spunky Monkey...and fell in love, for the first time.  Totally and freely gave the whole of my heart to someone.