Brief Update

Well, as brief as I can make it.

So lots of stuff has been happening here on the legal front… almost 7 weeks ago I entered a plea, and was supposed to have some sort of resolution on July 15^th. That date was continued (legal-speak for rescheduled) to this afternoon. Yes, TODAY. However, this hearing will also be rescheduled because not all parties are available. So we are hoping to reschedule for next Wednesday or Thursday.

All these continuances (reschedulings!) have resulted in a roller-coaster of emotions. I mean, on one hand, I’m all emotionally prepared to accept whatever the judge rules, and eager for the endless waiting to be over. On the other hand, I’m so grateful for a few more days, one more weekend, three more bedtimes, one more trip to the playground, with my family.

We have had the serious, difficult conversations with each other and with my parents. What will happen if? What do you want to tell the children about that? How do you want to handle this? Where is this information if we need to take care of those things? We’ve employed “gallows humor” and made jokes about it. I’ve made my sister promise that she can’t get pregnant and have a baby until I’m “back” – if indeed I go “away.”

I’ve done everything that I want to do “one last time”, just in case I don’t have the opportunity when I return, or something happens to them while I’m away: lunch with my aging grandparents, letters to my aunts, hundreds of kisses and hugs on my tiny children, who will not be so very tiny when we’re reunited.

It has been hard. No, it has been excruciating. And I’m not one to use the big words. But this is hands down the most difficult situation I’ve ever been through. This is more difficult than my father getting a debilitating disease when I was an adolescent. This is more difficult than my very first grown-up relationship going sour (over and over again!). This is more difficult than suffering a miscarriage, and more difficult than all the angst my husband and I have experienced as a result of my actions.

But through it all, I have to be honest: there have been good moments. Things to treasure. Things I have learned to appreciate. Like the everyday moments that as a busy mother, I tend to hurry through, get it done, finish it and move on to the next thing. I have learned that people, relationships, are far more important and irreplaceable than things – houses, furnishings, artwork, vehicles, investment accounts, anything. I am appreciating the simple tasks I do for my family, like folding laundry, making cupcakes, sitting down and having breakfast together.

And I am learning, too. About what it means to sin. About what it means to be broken inside. About what it means to have a Father who loves me unconditionally. About grace, and mercy, and forgiveness. I am learning about what it means to be vulnerable, to let go of my rigid ideas of what is socially acceptable and “Christian” acceptable, and to be honest about my failings, about my weaknesses, about my faults. I am learning how to ask people for help. How to ask Jesus for help. How to depend on God’s goodness toward me, and to trust His mercy, that perhaps it won’t save me from the consequences of my actions, but it will certainly get me through them.

I cannot help but be grateful, and to echo the words of David in Psalm 116 when he sang:

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice, he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. The cords of death entangled me, the anguish of the grave came over me, I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord, “O Lord, save me!” The Lord is gracious and righteous, our God is full of compassion. The Lord protects the simple-hearted; when I was in great need, he saved me. Beat rest once more, o my soul, for the Lord has been good to you. For you, O Lord, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before the Lord in the land of the living. How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me?

Indeed. How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness toward me?