Begin Again

There is something to be said about experience.  There is something to be said about learning.  The simple truth of life these days is this; everything I think I know, or every realization I have made in life, tends to repeat itself in multiple, varying forms.

I read a blog post this morning about a young mother who is discovering how beautiful she is through the eyes of her 5 month old daughter.

I remember those days.  I remember when Jack was first born, then James, and watching my body change.  I remember thinking those negative thoughts (sometimes I still do) then replacing them with, "but look at what was created because of it?!"  I remember berating, then forgiving, then berating and forgiving myself time after time as I stumbled through those first parenting years. (Also something I still do)  

My thought process seems to begin again.  Over and over and over and over and over again.

There are moments of clarity in this life that cannot be described with words.  Moments where you look at yourself, and your life, and you find this absolute contentment and assurance that everything is exactly as it should be.  

Then a week later you think.  "Well.  What the #@!! happened here...."

Fact.  I am a mother.  Fact.  I have been through some "stuff."  Fact.  I have overcome that "stuff."

Fact.  Never in my life will I completely understand why, regardless of what has been overcome, the constant nature of endurance never, ever ends.

Some days I look to God and, with all the gratitude I can possibly muster in my heart, thank Him profusely for everything He gives me, and humbly admit to myself that I will never know why He feels to give so much to one so unworthy.
Some days I look to God and, with all the confusion of a mortal being, I exclaim with a broken heart all the frustration, pain, and pleading in my soul, begging Him to stop pushing me so hard in so many different ways.

Some days I am bathed in light.

Some days I am lost in darkness.

I am human.  I am weak.  I find peace and understanding with life, and then I lose it.  My life will ever begin again.  I will always learn something new, then forget the complete value of the lesson learned, and learn the same lesson in a new way on a different day.  

Today I am grateful for that; I am grateful, and frustrated, with my begin again's.    

Over, and over, and over, again.