Blessed. So Blessed.

I am blessed. Sometimes struggling, but always blessed. I pulled out a box of old photographs tonight...the kind of box that sits under a bed, abandoned, until a "nesting" mood strikes and this box is rediscovered...and all of its brother and sister boxes, as well. The ones that eluded unpacking since moving in five, no six, years ago.

Yes, that box. The box with the pictures that make my heart sigh. My heart did a lot of sighing tonight. Remembrance, reliving, regret. Isn't it funny what a picture pulls out of the deepest core of someone? And I lost myself there on the floor, feeling those strange feelings. Those feelings the pictures yanked from within me, stretched and snapped out like a rubber band. Do you ever want to be the person in the pictures again? Do you want to relive every moment, full of promise and hope, pain and aching? A second chance to do it right? Or just to relive the very right way you did it first?

I do.

And then I think how blessed I am...from those pictures to here. From that girl to this one. I am blessed. A husband, a family (growing), a home, a church family...I am surrounded by love. And The Greatest Love. Love that will not give me "lesser things" because I am not yet who I need to be. I am thankful for the greatest things that seem the opposite of blessings. Those ironic blessings that hurt and sting. They are from God's hand, too.

I thank God for the blessings through the tears. All the blessings that bubble up and overflow, drowning out the sorrow. Jon, my dear husband, may be sick and struggling. We may not have what I think the "perfect" life should look like, but here are the blessings through the raindrops:

• He has a good job in which he excels, even on the hardest days with the fewest hours of sleep.
• He has never had to go on disability.
• He is able to work from home when he needs to.
• He is able to be flexible in the hours that he works.
• Reading stories of others with Lyme Disease, I know it could be so much worse.
• My children have a father who loves them.
• I have a husband who loves me, even when I am at my worst.
• He is still able to support us such that I am able to be home with our children every day.
• We have everything we need and even more.
• We have grown...I have grown. That is what really matters.
• God has never given us more than we could handle.

Thank you, God. Thank you, Friends, for praying us over the bumps. I feel those prayers lift us up.

We are blessed. So blessed.