Seven is a lucky number

 WOW! Seven years…

Obviously soooo much has happened in seven years. I don’t even want to think about an in depth catch-up here, so here are some highlights.

• Bought a house
• Got my heart broken
• Had major life changing surgery
• Had a quarter-life crisis
• Met the most amazing man in the whole world
• Got married
• Had a baby
• Sold my house and moved back to Wyoming

And that about wraps it up!

What a weird, wild trip these last seven years have been. The amount of growth I have experienced is…I don’t even have words to describe what it is. The only thing I can compare it to is something I mentioned in a past post about us being a mansion to be remodelled.  Only this time my mansion got stripped down to the bare bones, the foundation being the only sure thing, and even that ended up being smaller than I thought it was. Some of the supporting structures were even torn down and thrown out. Much of the original wood and frame are still there, though they may have been repurposed and turned into something else much more helpful. I feel like I am starting from almost scratch again. 

It was so fun and interesting to go back through some of my old posts and see some of my naïveté, but also some of my wisdom that I had forgotten about. Whatever wisdom that shines through in those posts was 100% from the Lord, probably put there for my own sake too look back on and learn from. 

So, what is on my mind lately? What have I been focusing on? I guess, in a nutshell, love. True, unconditional, whole-hearted, love.  I can honestly say, I didn’t understand how deep that kind of love could exist until I met my husband. That kind of love is work, for sure. It is a living creature that needs constant nourishment or else it dies. But it’s rewards are absolute peace, safety, confidence, hope, joy, sorrow, and soooo much fun.

I have learned to open up my scope of love to include so much more than I had before. That sounds very cryptic, let me explain. I didn’t realise until a few years ago just how judgemental of a person I was. I was ignorant. Plane and simple. I had grown up believing myself to be superior, by virtue of my spiritual beliefs.  This was something I came by honestly as it was an undercurrent belief in the culture I grew up in.  Let me be clear on this point, it was an undercurrent in the culture, not the doctrine, that I grew up with. The doctrine, when studied unbiasedly, with an open mind and heart, actually teaches the opposite of the superiority I grew up believing I was entitled to.

The doctrine, actually teaches the love I have come to understand. It is charity. The pure love of Christ. A concept I heard over and over growing up. But, I never even began to understand what it meant until meeting my husband. He changed my life. He helped me to grow in ways I didn’t even know I needed to grow. 

So, basically, to quote a primary song, “Jesus said, love everyone. Treat them kindly too. When your heart is filled with love, others will love you”. Simple, right? But oh, so profound!

Being a wife and mother are still new roles for me to fulfil, but I absolutely find them to be fulfilling! I am finding so much joy in this journey. Life is a struggle, for sure, but it is a struggle I wouldn’t trade for the world. 

Here’s hoping it doesn’t take me another seven years to make it back here.