The old saying goes, you don't know what you got till its gone. I have been so blessed and have never realized it and so for this I am repenting and turning to the path of righteousness and thankfulness.
What sparked this what looking at pictures of my babies and my beautiful wife. I have so many picture on my phone coming from many steps and stages of my life. My son's newborn days, my daughters newborn days, my wife and I as a young couple when we were first dating, my son's very first lego tower that actually resembled a tower, the silly days we would spend where we didn't have any particular agenda but to just relax as a family. So simple yet so wonderful.
It breaks my heart that it took my wife leaving for me to stop and smell the roses and look at how blessed I am. I am hopeful we will work things out but at the same time my heart hurts because she is gone because of me. That I took her for granted and there are days I do the same with my children. As she is gone (right now on a Christian women's retreat) it feels as if a piece of my heart is missing because she is the other half of it.
Its funny though if physically half of our heart was gone we wouldn't be able to survive or even function but here I am pressing into the loving heavenly arms of my daddy. He is truly so wonderful and I am afraid my relationship with Him is what gets taken for granted the most. I may not have tons of pictures with Him but He has written on my heart the memories of His comfort and chastizement.
Gosh I sound like a blubbering idiot, and some of the more "masculine" may get tired of it but I can't help being broken right now, so I hope there is grace there.
I encourage you all to not make the same mistake I have today, look each one of your loved ones in the eye and you tell them how much you care about them and love them.
God Bless,
Matthew