Three Years Ago Today...

October 5, 2010 

I found out I was pregnant with our third child,
and I was not happy about it.

I had been back at work for six weeks,
and I was not happy about it.

My boys were getting bigger with every passing day,
and I was not happy about it.

I had lost hope for a better future.
And with that hope had gone my happiness.

*

Four months of therapy, along with heavy journaling & prayer, healed my broken heart.  Signs of spring, little buds on the trees, more daylight, warmer evenings, all promised me that winter would be over soon.  Not just the physical winter, but my emotional winter.  The baby who started as a nausea-inducing intrusion on our family of four became a wiggling, hiccuping presence in my womb and I began to be able to picture him in our family.

I started to believe that maybe God did have a plan for my life.  

That maybe after the rain, there would be a rainbow.

April came, and with it my rainbow. 

Josh got a job and my status as stay-at-home mom was made permanent.  Two short months later, that amazing bundle arrived, and with him, hope. Hope for our family, hope for our future, and hope for better days to come.

*

I am now living those better days.  Thursday we got our first deposit from the state of Alaska for the Permanent Fund Dividend. $900 per person for everyone in our family.  We are on a plan to pay down credit card debt & get my student loan paid off.  Every month I dread paying bills, and then when I'm done I wonder why I dreaded it so much. I think it's a leftover emotion tied to years of being so broke.  

I understand now why people say you must experience unhappiness to truly appreciate happiness.  In looking back at those dark times in my past, I am able to appreciate more deeply where I am today.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord,

"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.

Plans for hope and a good future."

-Jeremiah 29:11