The Wait

     I lay here in bed with so many thoughts running through my head. I am tired..but this brain of mine simply won't stop. I think back about my life. Well mainly the last ten years. I wonder how I ever made it. I even kept my sanity intact(for the most part:) I question what kept me hanging on when I had absolutely no hope or fight left in me.

       I remember the pure exhaustion I felt with a 6 month old baby, a 3 year old and a seven year old. I was doing my best caring for them when my husband was in a four wheeler accident. It left him with a broken leg, the base of his skull was fractured, a complete fracture of C2 in his neck and a brain hemorrhage.  He was on a walker and in a halovest for some time after that.  I now had one more person that could not meet the majority of his needs. We made it though.

        We also made it through pancreatitis, alcoholic chirrhosis, suicide attempts, detox centers, mental health stays, wrecked vehicles, assault charges, trespassing charges..DWI's, narcotic abuse and multiple rehabs.  My husband hated himself for many years. I lived in fear that I would find him dead. I worried everyday that he was going to kill himself. When the kids and I would get home from our day, I always went in first before them. Trying to prepare myself for what I might find.

        I was warped also. I spent a lot of my time digging through trashcans and looking for places in our home that he was stashing pills or alcohol..hiding money and his keys. I spent many nights driving around looking for him. Hoping I could find him before the cops did.  I spent so much of my time trying to keep peace in my home..walking on eggshells so that we didn't make him mad. So much of myself was determined to control him and his addictions. I really lost who I was. I was unable to focus on anything else in life other than this man who was an addict. This man I called my husband.
          I remember trying to figure out how we got to this place. We weren't always this way. This complete chaos didn't happen overnight. It was a culmination of bad decisions. Bad decisions that eventually controlled his life and mine.  I really believed that this is how we would always live our lives. Smiling day to day...yet miserable and lost on the inside. 
             But...that is not how our story is going to end. I REFUSE to let my story end that way. I know that I cannot control anything in my husbands life.  I don't even have the desire anymore to do so. What I can control is my own life. I determine my own happiness. I am concerned with my own walk with God. I know he has a plan for both of our lives. I don't know what his plan is...but I do know that he has buried our past! 
          So I will wait. Wait for God to give me back a heart filled with trust. Wait for him to give me complete peace in my life. Wait for him to lead my heart where it needs to be. Wait for him to direct my path how he sees fit.

Afterall...he waited a long time for us.