During the past 3 months, God has helped us through several challenges and trials. Seeing children go through trials can be a trial itself. Here is a list of ones I can remember right now, along with the hidden blessings that came with them. All within the family, and not just one person.
*Survival of a suicide attempt; wake up call for us all, it took me to a hospital where my neighbor had been admitted for removal of a brain tumor and recovery, so I was able to visit her while picking up my child. Prompted me to require this child to be under our direct supervision for the next month which assisted him in staying away from drugs.
*Survival of rolling a truck; forced me to take this child where he needed to go from then until he could get his own vehicle again, and create and stand up for some boundaries. Made it so that he could focus more on Education. Gave me a sense of control and reassurance; since I was now the one taking the older boys to their GED prep class, I personally knew they were getting there.
*Loss of the use of that and ANOTHER vehicle; simplified the driving situation and saved some gas and insurance money.
*Jail time; always humbling to some degree, at least for someone.
*Court meetings; forced to re-evaluate life choices and renew commitments.
*Suspicious mole was discovered, biopsied, and found to be a basal cell carcinoma; I had no clue this was even there, because it was where I couldn't see it. My reason for going to the dermatologist in the first place was for suspicious spots that ended up being benign.
*Serious relationship breakup; seriously, this was a blessing in so many ways, but was absolutely depressing for my son going through it, which I believe contributed to the next on the list, as well as the truck rolling:
*Collapsing at work; a blessing in disguise I believe, because it led to us finding that he had elevated liver enzymes, which led to a bunch of other tests and now we know his iron is way low too and it could be the motivation he needs to fix up his nutrition approach.
*Drug use and abuse; blessing in disguise how? I suppose leading to all the court dates and jail time and such… it may have more indirectly contributed to learning and growing.
*Drug tests and counseling; inconvenient and sad that they are needed, but what a blessing to have the opportunities to re-evaluate and try harder each time.
*Demolition of our kitchen and subsequent asthma attacks; of course this was to redo our kitchen, but the realization that we needed to get the demolition done quickly happened just a week before it was supposed to be done, so it was done in a big hurry and flurry… but a huge blessing to be redoing the kitchen in the first place. We were able to replace some rotting floorboards. Finding out about the asthma through allergic reactions to all the dust wasn't fun, but I had suspected that he had asthma for a couple of years now, and just never had him tested, mainly because covid protocols prevented the blow test from being done when I first took him in for it, and then it stopped being too much of an issue, so I never followed up. This presented the perfect opportunity to get an inhaler at least, which we did.
*Strep throat; always a humbling reminder to get more fresh air, more probiotics, more veggies, more water, more smiles and sunshine, and less starchy carbs mixed with lots of screen time.
*Living out of our basement and having to use our bathroom sink instead of a kitchen sink; makes us be all the more grateful for the finished kitchen we're about to have. Makes us appreciate handy running water so much.
*Kidney stone discovered; finally now I know for sure that I do deal with that problem. This can prompt better treatment of my body. It also led to me finding out what another symptom I had was due to, and it was benign, thank heaven!
*Started homeschooling 2 of my kids after withdrawing them from the private school they were in. I hadn't planned on homeschooling anyone this fall. This has been a hard trial for me, as I really needed a break from academic homeschooling. I have had to embrace some of my more eclectic approaches from the past, which I have conflicting feelings about but they really are valuable...
*Since August, we have known it to be a possibility that we would be moving. It has been difficult making plans not knowing what the near future would look like. Finally, at one point, we just decided we would stay the school year here and make it work if he did get the job sooner. But to have everyone in the family feel unstable because of the possibility of moving has been a challenge for sure. It has been a blessing in that it has forced us to take risks and have faith in everyday and weekly/monthly decision making.
Many of these trials created a need for more stringent boundaries that should have been in place long ago. Sometimes I have coped well and sometimes I have curled up in a blanket and shut down, binge watched some things, or just complained to God or a good friend. For the greater part, however, I have felt like I am in the eye of the storm. I can't help but wonder if the 40 day Aap Sahaee Hoa meditation that I did from mid Aug to mid Sept has/had anything to do with me feeling that way (the eye of the storm) or anything to do with how much we've been dealing with these past 3 months. I believe it helped me better cope and deal with all of it. I am thinking about doing another 40 days of it.
