Extremes

It is easy in life to go from one extreme to the other. Just yesterday I was talking about how thankful I was for the many joys in my life. Today I am feeling attacked...and angry.

It all started out innocently. I found the old home movies that we had taken of the kids when they were little. Ashlyn, Landon and I cuddled up on the couch to watch them. We laughed at the way their voices used to sound, the way they tumbled when they walked, at the many faces they would make and how they danced as toddlers- just shaking their bottoms, bouncing their knees and clapping their hands. And then we got to the video of Christmas morning of 2005. Oh, how I remember that day. That was the day of my very last seizure. Normally, that is something that I rejoice over. I still do. But today watching that video I saw the future. I saw the four and a half years of my altered state, my days beneath the dark cloud - irritable, angry, clouded, foggy, afraid, uninterested... lost. If only I could have warned myself.

I was so angry. I felt like I missed out on so much of my children's lives. I remember when Ashlyn was little and I would sit and play with her for hours. We would read books, sing songs, build block towers and laugh when the fell. We went outside and played the rhyming game while swinging on the swing, swam in the baby pool, and took long baths where we sang songs and practiced the alphabet. I don't remember any of that with Landon. Did I play with him? Did I take the time to do things with him? The medication robbed me of that time. It robbed my kids of the mom they were supposed to have. How many times did Ashlyn ask me, her best friend, to play with her like we used to and I refused? How long was it before she stopped asking? Did I hurt her heart? Did she feel loved?

That was a really low point. I know that the way I acted on the medication had nothing to do with anything I did intentionally. I would never had treated my children that way if I was able to be my true self.

I find it interesting how quickly satan can get inside our heads and not only deceive us but rob God of the glory He deserves. I was so thankful and praising God for everything and satan hates that. So he jumped in and used something as rewarding as watching videos of the amazing family God has created to twist my praises into anger. Anger for my circumstances so that I said, "Why me?! Why did that have to happen to me and my family?!" Well you know what - I am not going to allow that to happen any more. I may never know why God allowed me or my family to go through all that we did. Maybe it was so that I would value my children more now and spend time with them. Only God knows and I trust Him completely. He doesn't make mistakes. And I can't look back. Dwelling on the past isn't going to help me or my children now or in the future. So I am going to stop looking back and start looking forward.

I am going to leave you with a quote that my mom sent to me, a quote that is very fitting,

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." -Maria Robinson