At least someone is sleeping in my house...
As many of you know, I have struggled with an addiction to prescription medications, specifically the heavy duty pain killers given for my migraines. I have been active in NA and Celebrate Recovery for two years, but it was really only the first year that I was legitimately "clean". On March 4, I checked myself in to an inpatient detox to safely stop the use which had accelerated since Christmas. I just took my 30 day chip at a women's NA group Tuesday night. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of this recovery is that my body is still not used to sleeping unaided. So, many nights, I am up into the wee hours, reading and hoping for sleep.
It just occurred to me that I am almost exactly at one and a half years after John's death and I haven't been writing much at all in the last year. Why is that? I suppose God has been refining me in some very difficult ways and I wasn't ready to bear the heat, so I stayed away from exploring my emotions. If I look a little closer, I can realize that the time when I was exploring some of these deeper issues of abandonment and questioning my worth as a woman was when I slowly slipped back into using . I like to refer to what I have learned in recovery as tools for living. But somehow, I set down that toolbox, "forgot" where I had put it and it was lost in the piles of unused, but valuable things I have acquired over the years. The night of March 3rd, I went looking and for the last month,I have been dusting off my toolbox and remembering how to use the life-changing tools inside.
"Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."-Jeremiah 33:3
Honestly, in those first few months after John died, I envisioned my life very different from what it is now. Though I feel like I have been stagnating, I know that even this period lacking much in measurable change is part of my story. What have I learned from these months of just existing? I have a quote from Helen Keller on my wall and it says,
"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."
Contentment is something that I strive for and find most days. I suppose this is the lesson I needed to learn. After years of achieving anything I set my mind to and then years of barely surviving, I realize that nothing that I do (or don't do) is going to change the way my Savior looks at me. I spent so much time trying to be "happy", not realizing that it was an unachievable state. Happiness is something that occurs as a side affect of living a contented life. Moments of happiness are usually not even recognized until after the fact, but an attitude of contentment supersedes any circumstance.
"While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment." ~Hasidic Proverb
So, if I had to take the long route to getting here, I am fine with that. If it took months of suffering from the fear of facing my feelings to get me here, so be it. If many more nights of broken and little sleep is what's required for me to learn this lesson once and for all, I am on board.
Contentment and peace seem to go hand in hand. I think that in the past I believed that I could never achieve peace because I was always looking to the future for something better. Today, I can look around me and focus so much more on the gratitude I have for the people and things that God has "supernaturally and strategically" put into my life.
"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."
-Proverbs 14:30
Instead of complaining about being awake at 1:41 am, I am choosing to see myself as blessed to be able to pick up my writing again. Staying focused on the now, being as fully aware of each moment as possible, and having an attitude of gratitude has and continues to change my outlook on life.
"I threw away that glass that was half empty and started filling a new one."-Cris New
I said this just last week to an old friend of 20+ years. During the three hour conversation, we talked about where we are today and where we thought we'd be. I wouldn't have guessed this reality for myself in a million years. Nevertheless, I find contentment in knowing that though I don't know the plan, I am intimately familiar with the Planner and that is sufficient unto today. It is so amazing to be able to laugh at my own words and feel secure in who I am.
Matt Redmond's song "Blessed Be Your Name" has been rolling around in my head for the past few days, so I thought I'd end this with a question: Can you bless His name even when you don't know where you are going? To me, that is another definition of contentment.
