Repost from 3/24/2016

One Tuesday about 15 years ago the kids took off for school and I laid down for a while: I wasn’t feeling well.  My husband came back to the house, which never happened, and proceeded to tell me about some bad choices he had made that affected our marriage and family.  It was shocking.  It stopped time.  And my life was never the same.  When the kids came home from school, their family had changed forever without their knowledge.

From that moment forward, I ended every phone conversation, every drop off, every walk out the door, every goodnight with “Love you.”  I still say it to them every time and they say it back.  I wanted to make sure that if time stopped again, those words were etched in their memories.

Now that trouble has struck me again, I have a new ritual.  Every night when I go to bed I tell myself and God what I am grateful for.  It may be just one thing and sometimes I have to stretch to find that one thing, but I find something.  Usually I have lots of things for which to be grateful.  Thank you for my phone conversation with Ryan.  Thank you for keeping Kevyn safe when she was traveling.  Thank you for my visit with Kyle.  Thank you for the warm day.  Thank you for the sun.  Thank you for the one pound lost.  Anything.  It makes me feel better.  It reminds me of all the blessings in my life.

In the morning, I give thanks for letting me wake up another day.  It sounds corny, but it helps me appreciate my life.

And, when all that negative talk starts swirling around in my head; what I did right, what I did wrong, what he did to me, how bad he is, how stupid I was, I say this little prayer to myself:  “God, please take this mind off of my mind and out of my heart.”  That’s really the best I can do.  I know there will come a day when I say that and hear in my head…done.