Sheesh......I tried Dots, and it was already clear, but that's okay. Maybe I was too long winded...you know me... I'm all about the detail... probably to a fault. I'll try it again. Probably most people dont' know me anyway, but for those of you who do I'll try to keep it to a nutshell. SOOO, when I was last here..... husband was at the last days of a substance abuse problem, we were almost ready to lose our house, life was pretty chaotic to say the least.... So pray, pray, pray... and then pray, pray, pray some more and then wait....So before having our house auctioned off, a close friend offered to buy it, THANK GOD!!!, we came out of it and were able to pay all our bills, do some car maintenance, help our kids, buy some things we'd been doing without and stash a little for when we're able to buy a house again. I don't know when that will be because we don't have a gob of money left. But the last few years have provided a healing time for our family. My husband was having pain pills/etc. issues and I won't go into all those gory details unless someone wants specific information because they happen to be going through the same thing, but it will suffice to say that it was a scary time here for a while. My daughter (our daughter) couldn't stand the up and down and moved out, right after we moved in to our rental house. My oldest son was of the opinion that when someone in your family needs help/love/whatever, you don't tell them that they're screwing everything up and make them leave, you nurture them back. I was caught in the middle of those two opinion. My daughter was angry and on some level thought I was just insane to tolerate it so she left. Not far, about a half a mile away in her own apartment. Scan forward...husband, through prayers of his own, and I'm sure all of our prayer as well, and some new medication, has no pain pill or opiate problem whatsoever now and is back to his new and improved self, is active in our church, and actively sought his children's forgiveness and repaired all those things that were broken. Now they're back to thinking that even though he's a little dorky (what Dad isn't?) that he's the best thing ever.
And through this I learned many things about myself. I learned that I went through a depression of sorts but didn't see it until I was on the other side of it. I think for 6 months after we moved into this house, I came home from work and laid on my bed. I'd get up to make dinner and went back to the bed. I think I functioned on the bare minimum. I was devastated that we were going through this, that my children might think I was either stupid, or insane, or at the worst, incapable of making an intelligent life choice. I just couldn't do it. So I had to let God just 'do it.' Which, I'm sure, I'm positive, was the best thing that could have happened. I just gave up.
About a year after moving in here, I finally hung pictures, signed up for a couple of art classes, then took some ceramics courses.... and I'm back to my regular self.
What I learned is this: when the "spouse" part of me was just about dried up and ready to blow away, the "friend" part of me had to kick in, which I had to explain to my daughter. ... when as a wife I may not be able to get over the trust issue, the wasted money issue, the wasted time thing, and just the disgust of having someone 'not do right', well that's when the "friend" part kicks in. I could never leave a friend in such sad shape. And that's what happened. I had to help him until I knew that I wasn't supposed to anymore. I would never, never leave one of my girlfriends in a miserable heap, so I couldn't do it to the man I loved either. No matter what. And I learned that I have to wait for God because if he taught me MY lessons, surely it was His place to teach them to my husband too, not my place. So I had to wait. And LOOKY HERE!!! It worked!
So, I don't want to press my luck with this thing, it's already locked up once. So ta ta for now.
Kate
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