The Story Is Still Being Written

Ahh. It's Monday. After a weekend of complications and a night of undo stress and a few cool thunderstorms with lightening I got to start off my day with a visit to the therapist. (There I said it. Yes, I have a therapist. It has taken me lots of work to be able to admit that and be cool with it. :)) I have been undecided if this will be one of those blogs where I go all TMI or just stick to the patterns, the recipes, and some food/fabric/yarn p0rn. But my description does say "and the eclectic life that happens in-between", so I'll try to find a happy medium. I was planning on getting into this more when I post about my knitting project I picked back up, so I'll save a bit for that.

I'm in this weird spot of single, but not. I won't go all crazy details of how we got here, but I am a single married lady. My husband and I separated almost a year and a half ago. It was a rough and bumpy ride that got us there and it's been a rough and bumpy ride since. There have been lots of bad decisions, ambiguity, nights of too much alcohol consumption and cigarettes, more bad decisions, a quilt that was dubbed the "revenge sex quilt" (no worries, it's just been me and the kitty, this was a time of lots of anger and lawyer visits and frustration), and some getting back together, then some breaking up again, some more bad decisions, then some getting back together. And yeah, it's been a rough ride.

And now? Now I'm not really sure what's going to happen. Really. However, God is an amazing God. I have learned that His plans rock my plans. His plans can be very hard to wrap my head around. I can think I have a handle on it, but then I don't. But He's God. If I could understand Him then He wouldn't be God. That's kind of the point. He knows more. He has worked in my life in so many amazing ways over the last two years. And nothing like I would have expected. Back before all of this I was walking along, not even realizing how high my nose was in the air. I talked of a God who stays by our side when times get tough. I shook my finger at others who thought that God makes life perfect, all the while not even realizing I was a total hypocrite. I thought I thought that if something bad ever happened I would be this amazing unmoveable person. I would stay strong in my faith, I would never doubt, I would never falter, I would never stray. All without a blink of an eye. Trouble is, in reality I never though that anything bad would ever happen. I thought if I was a good girl and did the actions that nothing bad would happen. (That was a hard pill to swallow and accept I really did believe that.) But life didn't roll like that. Bad stuff happened. I cryed and I screamed and I even prayed. But bad stuff still happened. I had to really stretch my head around who I understood God to be. I had to walk the walk (and sometimes this meant I stood still and froze and bawled and kicked). I had to really live out my faith in a God that allows us to have free will because He loves us SO MUCH. I even went through a terrible period where I struggled with grace so much I decided I could maybe be bad enough to not deserve it. Then God's incredible love for me overtook me. I had to accept He still loved me. Broken and bruised, through my doubt, through my fear. I always wanted to be someone who could speak of His love and redemption with my story, but I felt so empty. Then I had to realize that my story was still being writeen. While I felt like I had let Him down and He could never use me, I heard Him whisper to me that the chapter wasn't over. My story was still being written. There is this fantastic passage, 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, titled "The God of All Comfort" that reminds me in my struggles God comforts me and through my struggles He forms me into someone who can speak to others from a place of experience. I would rant on a message board about my struggles with my faith and wrestling with my faith and what it meant as I took a life that didn't make sense minute by minute and I would get messages from others on the board about how much the posts meant to them. I ranted and God used it. I was angry and tranparent and God used it. Wow.

Holy crap. That really isn't what I meant to write. I meant to just have a quick post telling you about this great Single Girl Quilt Pattern by Denyse Schmidt and how it entertained me being someone who is very aware of my lack of a partner in contrast to my old life. This post was originally called "Single Girling It As a Quasi-Married Lady", but it just didn't fit after seeing what came out as I typed. Sigh, I don't even have a picture to show you. Wait, here is my cat. Meet Magdalene Moo.

Don't worry, this blog will still mostly be about my search for control and my efforts to make sense of my messed up life through baking and crafting. But there is a story that goes with the person behind the screen. But my story isn't over. That's the fun and scary part about serving a loving God. He knows the plans He has for you. Even if you don't.