Another year gone by

I have had the great opportunity to connect with so many aspects of my life this past year.
With sadness and tragedy we find a way to make peace and work through those emotions and thoughts that seem surreal. I recall starting the year..married yet by myself. Trying desperatly to save something that was already gone (that's the nurse in me). One of the pivotal points was sitting in the car with my husband waiting to go into a restaurant to eat, attempting to shock this marriage back to life and listen to my husband tell me what a ^%$$% he thought I was, and how he had 2 girls that he had ready to replace me. Why did I choose to share this? I vowed at that very moment that I would never spend another moment of my time with someone who felt it was okay to talk to me the way he had, and I realized it was time to let go. Sometimes holding on makes things so much worse and the pain at the moment was excruciating. I was done!!! Divorce is never an easy choice but in some cases necessary. That truly had to have been one of the worst things I ever had to go through...but God has granted me the opportunity to know him better and to again find myself. There have been so many blessings/people that have come into the life of myself and my family over the past year and I was thinking this morning...how many people, how many opportunities I would have missed out on!!! We are blessed!!! I would have never thought in the beginning of this process that I would be smiling in the end. In a year that seemed so full of missed and lost opportunities (the car that got sold, the beautiful lake front property I didn't end up buying(still kicking myself), job opportunities, relationship ) Actually now that I think about it everything I thought that I wanted presented itself to me this year, yet I gave it all up!!! Ironic!! Again-I would have missed out on so much. I feel peace in my life...and again ironically enough I have been able to forgive Ben....something that I never thought I would do. He and I have become friends and I appreciate that. He is a good person...just very lost. I will be 36 at the end of the month-and this year I have learned to welcome this change as long as I have my health. I have learned that I am still alive and well and that if this is the path that I have to walk then I will welcome it with grace and glorify it!!! In the moments in our lives when we feel life is being sucked away from us...those are the moments that define who we are!!