Meant to be ...

Life's events over the last two or three years have had me saying that phrase... A LOT.

"It was meant to be this way..."

"Everything happens for a reason..."

I've had a BUNCH of horrendously crappy stuff happen to me/my family.
- I almost lost all of our family belongings when our moving company declared bankruptcy
- said bankruptcy then cleared out our savings in order to NOT lose our family's possessions
- a friend from my IRL mum's group lost her battle to cancer
- my husband has had to deal with being estranged from not only his mother (long long time), but now also his father
And that's just in the last 9 months, and just the really MAJOR ones... these aren't including the littlies.

Keeping positive has kept me floating; some days, barely. But, since finding a home church, and coming back to God, I've started to realise that I'm not really being "positive" per se... but more, well, not immaturely laying blame... heck, I'm even BEING MATURE about our situations.

- our moving situation was meant to keep us on a certain path, that we had been HELL bent on deviating from
- estrangement from his father has helped my dh see that maybe while he'll NEVER be close to his family, maybe having a distant (not as in distance, km, but distant as in, not close) relationship with BOTH parents is better than none
- for WHATEVER reason, Dee was needed in heaven, probably to protect her awesome little boy, and be his guardian angel

Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy about losing my mate to cancer, I sobbed for two days straight until she actually passed... and 2 months later, I still look at her photo on a regular basis, and shed a tear... but I feel happy knowing that her ds has his mummy protecting him from heaven.

And don't get me wrong, dh's fight with his dad was UUUUUGLY, and it will probably never be resolved, but hey, he learned that his dad will never change, and that in order to have a relationship, he's gotta deal with it, and just never take for granted the close relationships he DOES have... nor EVER let his relationships with our 2 ds be like that (not difficult to prevent, tbh). AS WELL, he's even mentioned contacting his mum... (but I'm not holding my breath for that just yet).

And our moving situation... ha! Again, don't get me wrong, because I honestly hope the people that took our money and our stuff, and knew FULL WELL that their insolvency application was to be granted in two weeks, well, I hope they rot in hell... but, in the big picture, we NEVER EVER would have thought to stay here in small town WL, BC (where I was born, and where I had refused to entertain the thought of staying here, btw)... but yet here we are, looking forward to getting some land, and building a house here. Through staying here, finding a church, and meeting new people (remember, we weren't going to stay here - this was TEMPORARY - we were gettin' out ASAP!), we've had opportunities present themselves that we would never have had, had we actually "gotten out." No, no monetary gain. YET. In two years? I get giddy thinking about the projects that we have bubbling atm. And yes, that's projectS.

Meant to be??? I honestly believe so. I honestly believe that in order to make sure these opportunities were available to us, God HAD to push us, because we just WERE NOT budging on our own.

We've come to the realisation that we NEED to be able to raise our boys *free range* as one of my new friends, A, puts it. I LOVE that thought. My boys, able to run around nuts, on 10 acres, with no worries.

We've decided to give home-schooling a go. I'd ALWAYS wanted to be home-schooled as a child.. now here's my chance to give that to my kids. We'll always give them the OPTION to go to a school, but they won't have to if they want to learn at home.

These are things that God has put in my heart... and all things that came as a RESULT of my prayer and soul-searching after/during our periods of adversity... Life is hard, but He's helping me through it.