Learning to Hope and Love Again

It is Christmas Morning and I find myself reflecting on the blessings and lessons learned in my life.  Please indulge me as I try to communicate what is on my heart.

This last year has been quite the journey as I learned that my heart is capable of opening up again.  While I have been saved for over 10 years, it wasn't until this last year that I dove deeper into the Word and truly began to comprehend the love our Lord has for us.  

The Lord spent six days making a world that was "Good" in every way. 

^{Genesis 1:31} God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

However, in his never-ending love, he recognized the one thing that "was not good" was that man, although having the closest possible relationship with Him and having dominion over the created world, was "alone."

^Genesis2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Just working through the book of Genesis, I felt the pain, frustration and disappointment that our Heavenly Father must have felt when Adam and Eve fell.  Not only did I feel His pain, but I began to comprehend the depth of what we lost in the Garden.  Adam and Eve existed in a state of complete and total vulnerability to each other without any sense of that vulnerability.  They were able to completely "know" one another without any barriers.

^Genesis2:25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

With the Fall, we lost more than just a Garden and an easy life.

^Genesis3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

We have heard and read this story since early childhood and it is easy to miss the depth of the loss.  The biggest loss was the barrier free relationship between man and God.  It is easy to overlook the magnitude of the consequences of "the eyes of both of them were opened" were.  

To personalize this, I think about times in my life when "my eyes were opened."  

• There was the first time I scraped a knee and came to the bitter realization that my parents couldn't protect me from all pain.  
• There was the first time I felt embarrassed or inadequate.
• There was the anger and pain from the first time I was punished for something that I had not done.
• There was the guilt and shame associated with the first time someone else was punished for something I had done. 
• There was the frustration of failure.  
• There was the shame and guilt the first time that I could hurt the feelings of others.
• There was the pain of the first love lost, when I felt the betrayal of my heart and the loneliness of having lost a part of it.  
• There was the time I stole something that I wanted from one of my classmates in second grade and the terrible feelings of guilt and remorse that came with it.  
• There was the realization that no matter how much effort we put into life here on Earth, there will always be struggles.  
• There was the first time my father had a heart attack and I realized that he would not be here with me on Earth forever.  
• Then flash forward to the agony of saying goodbye to my husband as he went home to our Lord and realizing that my Earthly father couldn't do anything to appease that pain.  
• Then, there was this last year when my heart opened back up to love another man after my husband's passing and I realized that he was not going to be sharing the rest of my journey on Earth with me.  There was the pain of realizing that no matter how "close" I wanted to be to him, we would never experience the completely vulnerable, open love of the Garden.  

Yes, we lost a lot with the Fall.  However, we are not without Hope!  Through Jesus, his love, sacrifice and strength, we are able to overcome the Fall.  It is only through him that we find the strength to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and open! This brings me to the blessings in my life.  

• I am blessed to have amazing parents who have always been there for me.

• I am blessed to have three beautiful sons who keep my heart warm.  

• I am blessed with true friends and family who stick with me through the roller coaster of life. 

•  I am blessed by the enthusiastic kisses of my puppy.  

• I am blessed to have a wonderful career.  
• I am blessed to have experienced the love of an incredible husband who truly would have died to protect me.

• I am blessed that, while I have not found the man that I will spend the rest of my life with, I have hope in my heart that I will.  
• Finally and most important, I am blessed by the love, comfort, strength and promise of our Lord and Savior.  We are blessed with God's love letter, the Bible, to draw us closer to him and comprehend his love for us.

So, on this Christmas morning, I pray that we comprehend the Love, Strength, Courage and Hope that we have in Christ. 

God Bless and Merry Christmas!

Unexpected Blessings

Five years have passed since I received that dreaded call on Father's Day weekend.  I had left Ray's bedside for just a few days to visit my dad for Father's Day.  As I left Ray, who seemed to be in good spirits and encouraged me to go, I told him that he better be even better when I returned on Sunday evening.  Instead, I received a call saying that if I wanted to say my goodbyes, I had better hurry back.

The next few hours were a horrible nightmare as doctors tried to convince me to let my husband go.  I think that I reached an all time low in my faith since I had been saved.  I cursed the doctors, I cursed the nurses, I even cursed God for daring to take my best friend, lover, father to my children and husband away from me!

As I posted before, Ray made a miraculous recovery that weekend.  By the next morning, my boys and I were singing his favorite song 
to him. 
   

About halfway through, my husband, who had shown no sign of being aware of us, started humming along and by the end, mumbling the words.  In those minutes, the Lord not only reminded me that we are not alone, but he also reminded me of his amazing grace toward my horrible break in faith.

As I look back on my life, I am made wonderfully aware of the blessings the Lord has poured down on me, even when I had turned my back on him and thought that he had turned his back on me.

People often give me strange looks when I say that the Lord blessed me with the experience of going through my husband's 4 1/2 year battle with Pure Red Cell Aplasia, 2 bone marrow transplants and ultimate passing.  Don't get me wrong, this is absolutely not the path that I would have chosen for my husband, my children, my family and myself.  My husband was a wonderful father, friend, brother, son and lover.  I think very few people could deny that their world was brightened by knowing my husband.  He was kind, witty, smart and compassionate, not to mention, a protector.  So, on the surface, it would seem that what we went through was anything but a blessing.  However, in many ways, it was.

Let me explain.  During the 1 1/2 years of courtship and engagement and then nearly 6 years of marriage, my husband and I faced more challenges and attacks from Satan than most people face in a lifetime.  I won't go into detail, but I will say that these challenges brought us to our knees over and over again and forced us to rely on God and each other.

While Ray and I were "good" people, we were full of pride and self-reliance, rather than putting all of our faith in the Lord.  We were both making good money, allowing us to have a lot of material things, vacations whenever we wanted, multiple homes and "toys."  We were basically big irresponsible children who thought we had it all figured out.  We took all of our "blessings" and each other for granted!

With each challenge that we faced, we became a little less sure of ourselves.  We learned the hard way that just because were both "control-freaks" didn't mean that we had control.  We learned to lean on the Lord and to treasure the gift of each other.  The 8 1/2 months that we spent in the bone marrow unit were some of the most challenging days of our lives, but also some of the most precious!  How many couples get 9 months of just about 24 hours a day to spend with each other.  Under normal circumstances I do not recommend this, but for us, it was amazing.  I may have only had 7 1/2 years to know my husband, but I probably spent more one on one time with him in that time than some couples have in a lifetime together.

Besides the time that we got to be together, I had another blessing from this experience.  Prior to my husband's illness, I had always been known as a high maintenance, spoiled "princess."  I was definitely not much of a nurturer, more likely to tell someone to "suck it up" rather than to have compassion and assist them when they were sick or suffering.  When I look back, I really don't like that person that I was!!!  Having been an athlete my whole life, I saw people who were struggling as weak whiners who needed to toughen up and not bother me.

While I was taking care of my husband, changing bed pans, keeping doctors on track and keeping nurses from administering the wrong drugs, while navigating the dynamics of my husband's family and my very young children's needs, I suddenly didn't seem so important.  I learned that I could put someone else first and that with the Lord's help, I was full of compassion and nurturing.

During the transplant, I was laid off due to my company pulling their business out of my state in the middle of this time.  I found myself out of money, facing a $1700/ month cobra payment on top of two mortgages and medical bills.  The day I found this out, my husband was on major doses of morphine and prednisone, causing him to have drug induced psychosis.  He was out of his mind, throwing things and cursing everyone out.  He didn't even know who I was.  I remember crawling in his bed once he was sedated, crying and trying to tell him what was going on.  He was totally unaware that I was even there.  I finally started praying in my desperation.

The next morning, they were able to lower my husband's medications and I described what had happened and about my job loss.  He then told me to go over to the cabinet in his room and get his passport holder.  For a minute I thought that he was still in a state of psychosis and told him that we had no need for our passports right now.  He laughed and said to trust him.  So, I brought his passport holder over to him.  He reached in and pulled out over $30,000 as my jaw dropped to the floor.  He had put the money aside for a "rainy day" and figured this was it.  After I lectured him for hiding that kind of money in the bone marrow unit, I was filled with peace that we would get through this.

The next months were a roller coaster that you can see in my earlier posts, but in the end, I would do it all over again and thank the Lord for the work he did in our hearts during those days.  I still miss my best friend, but I am truly thankful that the Lord answered our prayers by ending his pain.  Of course I would have selfishly preferred he heal him and let him remain here with us, but he did answer our prayers. 



"Blessings"

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
And all the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your word is not enough
And all the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not,
This is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if your blessings come through rain drops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near

What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise