Oh how sweet it is...

[MusicNMom]

 Well, it has been quite a year, full of prayers and pain...huge struggles with biting my tongue and learning to just let my husband lead the family the way God intends.

And now, my victory is here and it is so sweet. It is even sweeter knowing that I am enjoying it all the more because of all the lessons that God taught me through the whole process.

We are in the car on the way to a family member's house, and my husband and I are talking about how badly the week has gone with the school..AGAIN. How tired our daughter is, and how the homework is overwhelming. Things get quiet and then it happens.

The thing I have been praying for for almost a full school year.

He says, quietly: "I wish this year would have never happened."

I am stunned because I immediately understand the ramifications of his words. He means "this school year". This "choice". This awful year of 18 missed days of class and endless reams of paper work that would drive a saint crazy. Of sending a little girl out the door every morning at 7 am and us not seeing her until late, sometimes after 6pm. Of watching our little girl sink slowly deeper and deeper into defeat as she struggles to keep up with stuff she has never had a really good grasp on in the first place....

Then he says "No, wait, I dont mean that. " (and I quickly look out the window to cover the fact that my eyes are brimming with tears and just praise God that I didnt open my big fat mouth and start an argument). But what he says astonishes me more.

"I'm glad it happened...for one reason. I will never have this question again. I will never think that this option was a better option for our family...for our daughter...than the path you have taken us on before this. I was wrong. I am so sorry." Then his voice broke a little and he asked me:" Do you think she will ever come back from this?" And my heart soars....

Because I know she will. She will come back and be even stronger from this experience. And she will treasure the time to play more than she did ever before. She will love and appreciate every moment she has with all of her friends. And she will thrive....

THAT is what prayer is all about, my friends. Putting aside what we want and desire for our lives and asking for the leading and presence of the Lord. Doing what He wants and trusting that if we are in opposition to our husbands, then the Lord will change one of our hearts--drastically if needed, and in his own timing. It is much sweeter to savor the answer I prayed for all along to come now..than it would have been if I had fought and manipulated and never have conquered my own desire to control things. And my husbands heart would never have been at this place. That is a beautiful thing--and that is something I would never trade for the world.