And yet

Wonder

Is there anything in my life right now that gives me a feeling of wonder?
A question that was asked of me while I lay in bed at 230am on a Saturday morning, listening to my husband snore, my dumb dog (no really, she's incredibly dumb. Yes, I love and adore her) licking her leg (I abhor mouth sounds....especially from animals at 230am) and reading the book by the woman who wore that Chewbacca mask and laughed nonstop for 5 minutes on YouTube just a few short years ago (do yourself a favor and look up the video. It's pure joy).

Back to the question: anything in my life that gives me a sense of wonder? The only thing I could come up with was my 18 month old. The one currently sleep my horizontally in my bad, between my snoring husband and I. He is an absolute miracle. Born premature, spent 10 days in the NICU when he was born. The first 5 days he spent not able to breathe on his own. He had tubes coming out of places in his body you shouldn't have tubes (belly button? The top of his adorable furry head?) He was SO SMALL. And yet here he is now, 18 months old, a huge TANK of a baby (35 pounds, wearing 3T clothes) with the most incredibly personality. I stare at him daily and just have the warmest feelings in my heart. Oh goodness he's just what I needed at this time in my life.

What time is that you ask?
The hardest time.
The hardest time in my life.
The hard work of creating a school from the ground up I've been doing for the past 5 years is being threatened by politics. My need for achievement is laid bare for all to see. If I don't achieve something....then what am I? Who am I? If something I achieved is dismantled, am I still "great"?

So this brings me back to the original question; is there anything in my life that gives me a feeling of wonder. Besides my beautiful baby boy?
I guess you could say I am in wonder at how I am still able to smile. Still able to put one foot in front of the other, even though I feel like there's no ground for me to even put that foot on. How am I able to move forward when I feel so defeated? I am in awe at the faith and courage I have to continue and to start over. Because that is truly what I will be doing in 2019: I will be starting over.

The life I have worked so hard to build for myself and my family over the past 5 years is gone.
I am in wonder at how things change
I am in wonder at the lessons I am meant to be learning from this pain.
I am in wonder at the ability I have to sleep at night when my brain is so jumbled and full of crazy thoughts founded in fear.
I am in wonder how I can laugh, smile and find joy in my days when all that I have worked to create has been ripped out of my hands.

Then I realize: this is part of my path. I have survived much harder things. This is easy compared to the struggle of September 6, 2001. This is easy compared to the struggle of disfellowship. This is easy compared to my marriage falling apart. This is easy compared to my miscarriage. This is easy compared to giving birth prematurely and not holding my baby for 4 days.

And I sit back in wonder as I recall all those things that made it possible for me to get through THIS thing. This struggle. This trial. This time of life that feels so empty and without joy and wonder. All those things prepared me for this. Just as this is preparing me for the next thing. Because like is just moving from one struggle to the next, it's how we are made. It's how we are created. It's how we are molded together. One learning experience after another. And we only seem to learn when we struggle.