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Good last Monday morning of 2008! I have been hard at work on the computer this morning already. It is one thing to be struggling with coding and redesigning a website, and another to try and come up with words to fill the screen with. Not just any old set of words will do. I want words that inspire, motivate, comfort, or cheer. Unfortunately I am feeling bottomed out. It’s not burn out I think it’s just mental block from various sources of life stress.

What I have wanted to do all week is sit down and think back through the year carefully and pick out the gems of life lessons I have accrued throughout the past 362 days I survived. Some of those days were spent living high on the wave, and others were spent gasping for breath as the waves slammed me down under the crest. I know this is the angst of human existence — that for many reasons we tend to love more deeply, live more carefully, and appreciate things on a better level when we are in the tempest.

I share a lot of things on this blog and on my personal blog, but today I want to share some of the struggles going on behind the scenes. There are some life lessons for me along the path of struggles and triumphs. These are not things that I have really shared very freely, for various reasons. I tend to deal with my pain and struggles in solitude and feel more free to share once I have processed a lot of the hard stuff.

It’s one thing to read another’s journey, so please feel free to share some of your own top lessons for the year.

Estrangement. I am estranged right now from two family members by my choice. This happened in the course of this past year. Addiction is the driving factor behind one and lying and deception are behind the other. I have learned more this year how to let go and not rescue or excuse outright bad behavior — no matter the cost. It’s not a matter of forgiveness, but rather a matter of boundaries. It’s easy to enforce boundaries with strangers, but what if those boundaries cut you off from someone you love dearly? I am now living a line I was told by a mentor years ago: “Every person is worth the dignity of their own pain and consequences.” Rescuing, overlooking, excusing, etc. are all very patronizing and serve no purpose other than to stall the inevitable. Every man is responsible for his actions. Like it or not.

Control. As if I didn’t already know how much control I really do NOT have, this past year drove home the point. Two weeks before I was scheduled to have a complete hysterectomy I found out I was expecting. We were both shocked beyond belief and of course my doctor was watching me closely. There were medical reasons (of course) that the surgery was scheduled to begin with. As soon as we both got over the shock of the news, we were faced with a miscarriage. It’s not the first one we have been through, but it was the last. I had the surgery on time. As I was recovering I was going over and over in mind all of what had happened in the previous weeks. It left me wondering “why?” The only conclusion I could draw from it all is I will never know in this life. I can cling bitterly to the memory of it all and demand answers that I will never get, or I can just embrace my own humanity, grieve, and embrace the only resolution that I have. God is sovereign, and I am not. He is Infinite. I am not. You get the picture.

Iron will. I have a will to be contended with. I know it. I own it. I have also had to live through a lifetime of having that will softened, shaped and fashioned into a will that propels me instead of grounding me in stubbornness. I have spent the better half of the year nursing a stress fracture in my foot and then recovering from the hysterectomy. I have been able to, in the past, recover fairly quickly and bounce right back into life. Not this time. My will may be strong, but I could not will myself well or will my bones mended when I wanted them to be. I had to adapt my life around my afflictions — that is not something I am accustomed to. Life is a series of adaptations. If we don’t adapt we live in misery. Adapting is not a weakness, it’s simply a reality.

I have made new friends along the path of life this past year — some here at AllMilitary, and some along my physical path in life. I have had a full uninterrupted year of life and love with my husband. My son’s tour ended and he is home and married.

If I had to sum it all up in one succinct sentence I would say “I triumphed through faith!”

Hebrews 1:1-2 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.

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