It's All About Perspective

I have been posting my "thankfuls" on Facebook since November 15th. I started posting a little late, so I spent the evening coming up with my 15 reasons to be thankful so I could catch up. I had a pretty diffucult time coming up with all 15. Many of my reasons to be thankful were easy because I think about them everyday. Thomas and Spencer are my biggest "thankfuls" every single day. There are days, of course, that I would love to run away and be free from all responsibility, but who doesn't have those days?

This year has been a tough one. Finding out I was pregnant quite unexpectedly and then having a miscarriage was brutal. My husband losing his job in October was another tough blow. Realizing this job loss was within days of when I would have been having a new baby made me look at things a little bit differently. I know that sounds strange, but it restored my faith that God really does know what he is doing in my life. Having Thomas at home has been a blessing in disguise. Sure we are having to make adjustments. I can only imagine what it would be like right now if I had not finished my degree in May and gotten a raise this year. But the good part is that he is home. He does laundry, cleans the house, makes dinner and picks Spencer up from school in the afternoons. He doesn't get stuck in traffic coming home from a job that he hates in a foul mood and not wanting to speak to anyone for a while after he gets home late in the evening.

Would I still love to be holding that baby in my arms right now. Absolutely. It breaks my heart not to have it now. I had to call in sick on October 14. My actual due date was 2 weeks later, but with having a C-section with Spencer I knew that I would have another one and that would move the date up to October 14. I was doing fine until I got up that morning and saw the date on the school lunch calendar. Then I lost it. I was sobbing. I called in and went back to bed wanting the day to go away. I lay there thinking about "Heaven is for Real". The little boy had met his sister in Heaven and she didn't have a name. We had picked a few names that we like but had never settled on one. I decided that it was time to name our baby since it was the day it was due to arrive. I got out my list and Thomas and I narrowed it down to names that we both liked. There were unisex names as well as girl and boy names. It was really hard to pick names not knowing the sex of the baby. I decided that Spencer should pick the name since we had told him that we would make a list and let him pick the name. He chose Autumn. I love you Autumn.

So as I started out, it is all about perspective. Could my life be better? Could this year have been different? Yes, but it could have been worse too.