God is taking care of me

Yes, I'm still alive, and I'm still the wife of a sex addict. Ha.Ha.Ha. I feel like I've dropped off the face of the wopa (wife of porn addict) world. Sure, I've still been lurking on some online support groups, but I've only read y'alls blogs once in the past couple of weeks (and no comments even though I've loved all your posts, sorry!). There is a lot that I want to catch up on here, and I'm such a linear thinker that I would love to do it in order, but that's not going to happen tonight. Because: I'm finally really "working the steps." About a month ago I started participating regularly in a phone in meeting for the 12-step Healing Through Christ program. It has been great. I got an accountability partner right away and just a week or so ago I got a sponsor. I'm doing a thirty in thirty, which means I'm working the steps daily for 30 days and making contact with my sponsor every day. In addition to some part-time work and my two kids, I'm kind of busy right now. But it's been good for me, and there are some things I want to share from it, starting with step 1. But, I'm short on time right now and there is a post I need to write right now for part of a personal take on an assignment on Step 2.

In Step 2 there is a question about recognizing how the Lord has supported you in the past. I actually have lots of evidence of the Lord's involvement in my life. For 6 years I've been keeping a daily journal where I record how I've seen the hand of the Lord in my life that day (a la President Eyering's 2007 GC talk, O Remember, Remember). So I spent some time reading some of my journal entries from the past and I felt the need to share an experience of seeing the Lord's hand in my life on this blog, because writing is such an important way to process for me.

Although there are a lot of things from the past I could write about, I realized just a few minutes ago that something special happened last night that I wanted to share. Last night I was in a bit of a funk and even after a helpful conversation with my sponsor, I was spending some time lurking on blogs as a way of dulling my senses. By 1:00 am I was still laying in bed with my laptop, tired, but not feeling ready to turn my laptop off and face my dark room alone. Suddenly, I heard the pitter patter of tiny feet (for real, it's super cute sounding) and my 4 year old daughter pranced into my room and came to my bed with a sweet smile on her face and asked if she could cuddle. I let her come under the covers and her face was just glowing and before I could even ask her why she woke up she started rambling in her cute, tired, four-year-old way, "I like to have dreams about things that I like in my dream like things I really like . . ." She had just woken up from a good dream and felt the urge to come cuddle with me. And even though my heart was immediately warmed, I thought I'd keep my laptop on for a few more minutes while she drifted back to sleep, but after about 2 minutes she told me that the computer light was hurting her eyes. So I turned it off, put it on the floor, and snuggled up with my sweet girl.

I appreciated her presence again in the morning when I woke from what had a been a long and emotionally taxing dream. I dreamed I had been given a death sentence (from a court of law) and there was some expectation that I might be released from the sentence, but it didn't happen, so I was just waiting for my life to end. There's more to the dream of course, but I'm sure you can imagine why it was so disturbing. For most of the dream I was just sobbing my eyes out about the fact that my life was going to be over so soon (within hours), punctuated by short spurts of me trying to bravely accept my fate. Waking up to my sweet girl who was anxious for me to wake up  and get out of bed was really helpful. (She pretended to be Simba from The Lion King and started pouncing on me like he pounces on his dad to wake him up; it didn't hurt, thank goodness, but it did the job and was pretty cute.)*

This has never happened before. It has even been a really long time (4+ months?) since she has woken up from a nightmare or to go to the bathroom (she does still wear pull ups) or anything in the middle of the night. Once she woke up in the middle of the night and was happy, but she was convinced it was morning time and had gotten dressed for preschool and then was distraught when I explained it was 3 am and she couldn't have breakfast yet. Can I say for sure if this incident was a miracle rather than just a happy coincidence of REM cycles? No. Do I know why last night my daughter was in a position to help lift my spirits, but there have been plenty of other nights I've been left alone or my role as a parent has added to my stress? No. But a lifetime of experiences like this (documented on a daily basis for the past 6 years) are like stones that create the foundation of my testimony. By themselves, they may seem small and insignificant, but when joined by the mortar of my faith, they represent something much, much bigger and indisputably concrete. Everything about my life shows me that God lives. That He loves me. And that He has the power to help me keep His commandments and feel peace and joy despite what is going on in my life. There are plenty of questions I can't answer, but I do feel confident that I KNOW these things. Sometimes I start to forget them, especially on days where it's a harder to see His hand in my life (many days I recognize His hand in my life by expressing gratitude for a blessing in my life because I feel that all good things in my life are a gift from God). But whenever I take the time to remember, I regain confidence in my knowledge.

I wish I had more time to clean this post up. It feels rushed and sloppy. Because I'm rushed (I have a call with my sponsor in 15 minutes before the 12-step phone in meeting in 45 minutes) and sloppy (let's just say my yoga pants are earning their keep in my wardrobe). I'm grateful God is helping take care of me, but  I think tomorrow I need to take a little bit better care of myself.

*I feel the need to say that I work very hard to not make my children responsible for my emotional state or to burden them with my emotions. I do not expect my child to fix my mood or my problems. But I am thankful for my daughter's sweet, innocent spirit and the joy and peace and purpose that brings to my life, and how her presence was a blessing to me last night.