How Sweet The Sound

Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far
and Grace will lead me home.

Gratitude and grace go hand in hand. It takes grace to have gratitude for all that's in your life, even in those hours where you might feel lost. Truly, there is so much in my life for which I am grateful. I am grateful that even though I don't want to work outside of the home, I have a job. I am grateful for this in a tough economic time when so many would give so much that have a full-time job with good health insurance.

But what I am really grateful for are my two beautiful, healthy boys. I've talked before about how blessed and how grateful I am to get pregnant easily, to have easy pregnancies and deliveries. There's another side that I don't talk about often, though. I don't talk much about how as a rape survivor, I had Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. I remember reading up on it post diagnosis, and learning that 1 in 10 women will become infertile after having PID one time. ONE in TEN. If the odds of winning the lottery were 1 in 10, I would play every single day. I was only 19, but I knew I wanted children, and learning that those children might be taken away from me because of a choice I didn't make? Crushed me.

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

And so from that time on until I had a positive pregnancy test with Luke, I carried those fears in the back of my mind. The day I had a positive pregnancy test, after our first try, I felt gratitude, I felt victory. I felt so much gratitude for this gift, I felt gratitude for even though so much was taken from me in one act, there was so much that I still had. A veil had been lifted and finally, finally, I felt I could emerge from the darkness I'd lived in for the past five years. I felt that I could forgive. I'll never forget, but I forgave this man for taking so much from me, simply because he didn't take everything.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

And now, two healthy, beautiful boys later, I haven't lost that gratitude. I remember a time when there was so much darkness in my life, so much fear, and in the end, I am grateful for that time. Yes, I am grateful because that time in my life showed me that there is a grace far bigger than me, a grace that can lead us out of the darkness--if we only believe.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Entry submitted to Scribbit's November Write-away Contest