Climbing the Mountain

I almost didn't sleep at all last night - 3 hours. It was a combination of several things.... anxiety over the coming counseling session, the wild wind and lightening and thunder all last night and a toddler who crawled into my bed around 2:45am. But I did get up this morning with gusto and a determined spirit. The gusto came after the coffee. When my alarm when off I spent the first 20 mins of my day listening to some old-timey gospel songs and praying. That was the first good move of the day. The second was oatmeal. You can never have enough oatmeal. I got Vera up and into some clothes and packed her bag for Mamaw and Papaw's house. They were delighted to keep her this morning. Mamaws and Papaws = awesomeness.

The drive down there was a bit nerve wracking. I've never been to any type of therapy before and had only Hollywood visions in my head.  -"And how do you feel about that?"-   I was skeptical to say the least.  I could tell Nolan was a tad nervous and I was all ramped up on over-sleeplessness and jitters.We bickered just a smidge. I thought I would easily tell our story to this stranger who had come highly recommend. But it wasn't me that opened up initially. It was Nolan.

He was able to quickly get to the nuts and bolts of the issues. Our counselor had us do some communication exercises. We sad face to face and talked. And listened. It was insightful to learn how to listen to one another and actually figure out the intent behind what we were saying. He also gave us some insight into how we are grieving differently. On the whole it was very healing to have a trained 3rd party help us figure each other out. And I'm sure we'll go back for more.

Thank you to everyone who was and has been continuously praying for us. We love you all so much for this.