Life-altering moments

I know we all have had life-altering moments. Those moments that you never forget.  Those moments that you can remember every detail about. Those moments that are forever burned into your brain.  In view of my most recent post about being grateful for what I have and choosing to look at life with a positive attitude, some of my life-altering moments came to mind. 

One of the most vivid and difficult moments I have had was the day I was told that Darren and I would never be able to have more children unless we tried IVF and even then our chances of conceiving were very low (there are many more details here, I chose to leave out).  I was driving my daughter and my nieces home from a day at a water park when the fertility doctor's office called.  I remember what street I was on and I vividly remember ever detail of the conversation.  I also remember breaking down when I got to my sister's house to drop off my nieces.  I remember my Mom and my sister comforting me.  I remember calling Darren and crying so badly that he couldn't understand what I was trying to say.  I remember feeling shell-shocked that after 4 years of trying, hoping and praying to have a baby being told I couldn't.  I remember being angry, sad, mad, hurt and in shock all at the same time.  I remember feeling like my world had ended.  I remember thinking that I didn't know how to go on and pretend things were normal when all I could think about was never being able to have a baby. 

As you can see every time this difficult life-altering moment comes to my mind there are a lot of thoughts and emotions behind it.  Maybe you are still living with the aftershock of some difficult life-altering moments of your own.  It may not be related to infertility, maybe you have gone through the pain of losing a child, maybe you are having to deal with devastating health news for you or a loved one, maybe you have had a negative and life-altering moment in your marriage, whatever that moment was for you I am sure that when you think about it, there are a lot of emotions associated with it. 

Will you (and I) dwell on these difficult moments or will you learn from them, grow from them and  eventually be able to help others going through similar situations?  Will you remember the verse from Romans 5:3-5 that says "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

So back to the positive outlook (see my positive spin there).  One of my other vivid life-altering moments was the day that my husband of 11 years asked me to marry him.  I was 20 years-old (yes, I was young and Kaitlyn will have to be at least 35 before she gets married :-),  I was a Junior in college.  Darren and I had been dating exactly a year. It was Valentine's Day and I knew Darren had my engagement ring. We had picked it out together and one night I sent him to pick out a movie for us and I looked through his apartment until I found it.  I also knew he had asked my Dad for his permission to ask me to marry him. Darren knew how much I hated surprises, so in true fashion he decided to mess with me.   When I talked with him that day he acted like he had forgotten it was Valentine's Day and didn't mention us doing anything that night.  I was so upset by the time he picked me up from my dorm that I didn't even want to go out that night.  We drove to Applebee's which was the restaurant we ate at on our first date (we are real big spenders :-). When we got there I knew this was the night he was going to propose.  I even called my friend Nancy from the bathroom to tell her.  After a dinner of not eating much because I was so excited, Darren proceeded to read to me (he is an amazing writer) from a special book he had written that documented all that had happened in the last year of our relationship.  He drove me around Oklahoma City to special spots and gave me a rose at each place. At the final spot, he had the whole bouquet of roses and in the roses was my ring. He made the night so special and sweet that I will never forget this positive life-altering moment.

 So we all have those good and bad life-altering moments, what do we do with them?  I know I am personally still in the learning process of how to not dwell on the negative life-altering moments, but instead to learn from them.  I do not want to be defined simply by the bad moments I have had, but I want to be defined by how I am living my life now and by the many positive life-altering moments I have experienced.  I know that I cannot alter my past, change the hurts that have happened to me or completely forget all of those bad life-altering moments, but I can choose to face each day grateful for what I have and grateful even for those difficult, life-altering moments that are producing character and hope within me.