a little bit of this and that

hullo

Jaden:

Jaden is doing better - still stuffy, snuffly nose - but his mood seems to have improved and he is smiling & gurgling & doing all those cute baby things.
He went in for his 1st rotavirus vaccine yesterday and was weighed - he weighs 11 lbs & 15 oz! He is nearly 25 inches now as well. I am amazed at how quickly he grows and love all the new things that come about day by day. Even his farts & burps are adorable :)

Ponderings:
Thinking about 'a' today. I try not to think too much about him, because when I do, I get angry about what he has done, and sad for me & Jaden. It's not that I want him back - he's married again, so that is impossible. I just feel sadness about what could have, and should have, been. I know I've said I feel like I never really knew him - someone asked me about that the other day. I realized I did know him - for the most part - I just didn't realize what could happen. I can understand how he could have gotten into certain things, how he could have done certain things - and if he had stayed and tried to work on our marriage, I could have forgiven those things and seen it as an opportunity for growth for both of us. But he didn't. The part of him I may never fully understand - the part of him that allowed him to leave me, to be talking marriage with another woman 2 weeks after leaving, the part that didn't care that I was pregnant, the part of him that saw Jaden as a 'complication' and wanted me to miscarry (even after going through a horrible miscarriage with me the year before) the part that could ditch his friends and tell lies about them and me (we are all crazy Christians, by the way) - that's the part that makes me feel like I never really knew him - because I just didn't think he was capable of such awful callousness.

I try not to think of it all too much - I think there is a fine line between dwelling on it and analyzing and learning from it. I've decided it is wasteful thinking to dwell. It doesn't do me, or anyone else, any good. I want to be positive, to think about my future - single, or if I'm blessed with someone, and with Jaden - and be excited about the possibilities. I don't want to think of myself as divorced and miserable because of it. I want to see myself as just single, and I want to love all that that can offer me too.

Grace:
I'm reading "What's So Amazing About Grace" by Phillip Yancey. It was recommended by another person who has gone through a divorce. I'm really enjoying the book. Not in a 'fun' enjoyment type way, but in a challenging, stretching, making me uncomfortable type of enjoyment way.

Yancey quotes C.S. Lewis "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

I had always thought about grace in terms of someone having to admit to wrongdoing before I showed them grace. Like 'a'. I didn't want to offer him grace because he is unwilling to say, maybe even believe, that anything has done is wrong. Yancey is challenging me to change that thought pattern. The whole point of grace is that it is undeserved. I don't deserve it, 'a' doesn't, but I have been shown grace, and must show it to others in turn. Even if it is difficult and challenges me beyond anything I've ever known.

I find myself thinking 'I don't want 'a' to think I'm ok with what he has done/is doing. He'll think I'm ok with it if I show grace. He'll feel ok about what he has done.' etc. But God isn't going to judge me based on what 'a' thinks. He's going to judge me based on what I think and how I act because of that.

Yancey also details the history of a family which has been plagued by 'ungrace' for generations. It's like it is a curse, passed down, never overcome. I don't want to do that to Jaden and successive generations.

Speaking of, I hear the little guy waking up...sorry if this is jumbly, no time to make it pretty!!