IT ONLY TAKES A SECOND.....

TO REALIZE HOW PRECIOUS LIFE IS!  

How often do we take life for granted? We get so busy with our day to day lives and routines - our hectic comings and goings - that we forget how fragile life is.  We forget what a gift GOD has given us by being able to live each day.  We are too busy and too stressed and too caught up in our own lives.  It's just GO! GO! GO!

Then something happens that forces us to re-evaluate the way we look at our lives...the way we live our lives.  Something happens and we begin to reset our priorities.  We see everything through new eyes, a new perspective.  Something happens and it makes us grab ahold of our loved one and hold them closer than ever.  

I had one of these moments on Tuesday.

For the last several months, my life has been CrAzY to say the least.  Nine people life under our roof - 6 kids ages 5 and under, myself, my husband and my brother.  My mom and I watch all the kiddos most everyday.  And folks, it ain't easy!  But we do it out of love.  Even though the kids argue and fight and make messes and want something every second....we LOVE them.  We LOVE being with them. We LOVE watching them grow up.  But it's easy to forget those things and just get overwhelmed by the busy, hecticness of it all.  (Not sure if hecticness is a word but oh well!) I have so much on my plate that I easily get in a place where I seem to have on blinders.

I become so involved in chores and childcare that I fail to see other things in my life.  I fail to see the fun and adventure in having 6 kids around me.  I fail to enjoy time with my husband and others in my life. On top of this I have the burden of being an Army wife which in itself is no easy feat.  I had never dealt with anything military until I married him and 7 years later...I am still adjusting to it all.  I hate when he has to be gone for 2 weeks or a month or a year at a time.  I hate that he misses out on so much when he is gone. Our boys will only be these ages once and I hate for him to miss a second of it.  I am not the best at voicing my frustrations to him about this.  Call it bad DNA to have an adult conversation when I am angry or frustrated! He is military to the core...I am not.  We view his absences in a TOTALLY different way. I get it.  He's a soldier...it's what he does.  At the end of the day I LOVE HIM FOR THAT!  I feel totally blessed to be his wife....to be an army wife. But I don't always tell him that.  Such was the case last weekend. He is going to be gone with his unit on many extended drills this spring and summer which will cause him to miss out on some pretty important stuff here at home. I.E.:  the boys starting kindergarten.  I wasn't super cool to him about this.  I know it's not his fault but I took it out on him.  Another fault I have.  (Baby, if you are reading this...I am SUPER proud of you and I LOVE you for being who you are and doing all you do!  I am sorry I don't always voice that!)

With all of the day to day stresses in my life, I haven't been living in the moment.  I have been going to bed dreading all that I have to deal with or accomplish when I wake up.  I wake up still dreading what is to come each day.  I haven't been enjoying the small things that make life beautiful. (My nephew following me around saying "SISSY HOLD ME", coloring and painting with the kids, cuddling with my boys to watch a movie or watching them learn to ride their bikes, playing dress up with my niece, spending time with my hubby and so much more....)

I know!  I know!  I'm human.  It's easy for us to get in a rut. But I still don't think that is an accuate excuse.  GOD wants me to live a FULL life.  To enjoy every second.  I haven't been doing that.

 My reality lately has been cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and handling the many needs of 6 kids - I won't go into all that.  My reality has been going through the motions every day but not really LIVING my life.  I took for granted that my husband would walk through the door each day among so many other things in life.  It's super easy to take things for granted.  

I have been taking my family for granted in general.  My life as I know it even. I was living in my own personal reality.  Then this past Tuesday.........

 Tuesday morning started off like any other.  I awoke to Joe stirring around getting ready for work. the boys were still sleeping.  The house was quiet.  Joe got ready for work and sat on the edge of the bed and we talked a bit before he kissed me goodbye and headed to work. A few minutes later the boys were up and about and it was time to get us some breakfast. Joe hadn't been gone anytime when my cell phone rang.  The "GOD GAVE ME YOU" by Blake Shelton ring tone signaling his call.  Being that he hadn't been gone more than 10 minutes I figured he was calling to tell me something or that he had forgotten to take his lunch and was calling so we could laugh about it since he does that often. I answered the phone with my usual "HI BABY!"  His response rocked me to my core - "I'm on 64 and I've had an accident".

I froze where I stood.  Somehow I found the ability to speak and to ask what I needed to know the most....was he okay?  He was shaken up but otherwise okay.  I could tell in his voice he was very shaken up.  I am not accustomed to hearing Joe sound rattled.  Nothing gets to him.   Relief flooded over me when I knew he wasn't harmed.  I said a quick thank you prayer to GOD in that brief second that he had been watching over Joe and that he had not let him be harmed.  

 Joe had been driving down 64 to work in Louisville.  He was between Shelbyville and Simpsonville when he heard a loud snapping/popping sound then his car lost all control from the back end.  This put him in a spin with him trying to correct it  to no avail.  With each spin he would see the 18 wheeler that had been driving close to him.  He was praying the whole time "please God don't let me hit that 18 wheeler" over and over. God heard his prayer.  That 18 wheeler passed him and never touched him.

No car touched him.  He didn't hit anything or any other vehicle.  He spun 4-5 times and landed in the center median between east and west bound lanes, perpendicular to the traffic. Other than the tire being shredded and the car broken....JOE was untouched and unharmed.  Knowing it was rush hour traffic and he spun yet didn't hit anything including the 18 wheeler was both a relief and a panic for me.  I was overjoyed he was okay but was also thinking about all the what if's.  Gotta love the human mind!  

*What if the 18 wheeler hadn't been able to avoid him?

*What if there had many lots of car?

*What if he hadn't been in the left lane?

*What if the car had lost control in the construction zone?

*What if he had been seriously hurt and unable to call me?

*What if I had lost him?

I don't know why our minds play those dumb scenarios on us.  All the what if's.  Even when things go the way we want or need them too we still wonder what would it have been like if things had gone the other way. But I just couldn't help to ponder those things while I waited for Joe to be brought home in the tow truck.  All I wanted to do was throw my arms around him assuring myself he was truly okay...really and truly alive and well.  I knew how bad car accidents could be.  I saw my parent's moments after a head on collision in 2009.  It's a sight I never care to see again. Knowing Joe could have been in just as serious an accident scared me to death.  You re-evaluate so much when you realize you could have lost someone you love more than anything in the world.  Joe is my rock.  He is my best friend.  He gets me like no one else ever has.  He knows the real me and has brought so much joy and happiness and love into my life.  I could go on and on how much he truly means to me.  How happy he makes me.  What a wonderful husband and father he is.  He is an amazing man and I am so blessed and thankful to be his wife.  I thank GOD for keeping him safe Tuesday and for bringing my husband and my children's father home!  I thank GOD for using that to make me see how much in my life I was taking for granted and how I should be living my life compared to the way I was living it!  Tuesday morning has totally changed my life. It was a HUGE dose of reality....a real reality.  As well as a reality I could have been living right now that would have changed the rest of my life and my boys.  
Life is too short.  GOD has given me and my family a wonderful gift of living our lives intertwined and I don't want to waste another second or take another moment for granted!

Proverbs 3:5-6

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart
   and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
   and he will make your paths straight.


A video of Joe's tire tracks before he landed in the median.......