Dreadful, Pitiful Time

A friend of mine came over one day this week, and together we baked scones.

Our kids did homework at the table, and played in my family room and backyard.  The house was electric with energy, but even with all the chaos and noise it was miraculously peaceful.  Laughter filled the space, and that magical din of children's noises was absorbed into the walls of my house, but not more than the filling it gave my soul.

It was a good moment.

But, like many good moments, my thoughts drifted back to another time, and another place where Christmas baking was involved, and it was only 2 weeks after I left my husband.

That moment was not as good.

It had all the foundations of wonderful:  A long-standing tradition between my mom and sisters that I always had to miss, since I lived in Nebraska, and they live in California.  But, since the kids and I were staying with my mom after we left my husband, we would be available to participate in the joy and the fun.

My spirit longed for joy.  For 2 weeks it had felt ripped apart, with jagged, raw edges cutting away any attempt for happy moments.  But, how could the depths of my sorrow possibly interfere with the joy of mixing family cookie recipes with some of my favorite ladies in the world?

Yet as I measured, as I mixed, and as I baked I found that I couldn't shake the numbness of my soul.  The sugar, and even the chocolate couldn't penetrate my sorrow, as I found my mind going to literal places of pain.  Deep, agonizing pain.

I remembered all the years I had baked these very cookies.  For my family.  For my husband.  I remembered little aprons tied behind the little backs of my happy little kids as we worked together in our kitchen at home, our home, cutting out our sugar cookies, and frosting them.  I remembered my pretty Christmas platters, and my kitchen table.  I remembered the smell of the freshly cut cedar tree from the pasture, and how I hated it initially, compared to the pine Christmas trees I was accustomed to before living in the country, but oh, how I longed for that pungent cedar smell.  And the house it filled.

I longed for simpler times.  For happier times.  For my life to be back again.  Restored.  Healthy.  Whole.

Brought back to the present, I saw my mom, and my sisters in the kitchen, and my nephews and niece playing outside with my kids.  My kids had their cousins.  I looked at my mom.  I had my mom's hands.  The very hands I'd cry for and miss when I was 1,300 miles away.  I was finally able to be a part of this Holiday baking tradition--something I had always wanted to experience, after hearing about it from my sisters and my mom for so many years.

Could I not ever be happy again?  Would I always feel so melancholy during moments that needed to be preserved and precious?

It would take time.  Dreadful, pitiful time, but yes.  I would be happy again.

Not quickly, and not according to the timeline set by my friends and family who agonized over seeing my pain.  And not even according to my own timeline and attempts to seek and find happiness.  Not through romance, or a new job, or a new house, or a fresh start.

I would find happiness the hard way.  One day at a time, applying the things I would learn along the way that would make me strong.  The things that would change my thinking, and even my habits.  I had to be renewed.  Restored.  Refreshed.

And it took time.  Dreadful time.

Step by step we climb out.  One foot in front of the other, one up stretched reach after another, a grasp of rock and then another, and a pull upward.  Up, up, up, higher, higher, higher until after persistent, arduous work we find ourselves at the top, soaring.

With a view.  With the view of an eagle.  On Wings Like Eagles.

And we see.