Author: God is in the Outcome

Mysterious Gifts & Forward Motion

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Google photos pulled me into a wormhole today.

I probably should have backed out but I couldn’t. I laughed. I cried. There weren’t only pictures of Scott and all of our boys but also pictures all the way back to baby births. People I loved very much are gone. My Granny, my second dad (because we don’t say “step” or “half” in my family,) my beautiful nephew, my amazing husband. All gone in the last ten years. Three out of four in the last three years and two in the last five months. We have beautiful memories preserved in photos of all of them. Some made me smile. Others hurt my heart so much. There are so many moments I wish I could go back to.

My husband has sent me gifts, though, since he’s been gone. No, I don’t see dragonflies and white feathers everywhere. I do see cardinals because he and I put a bird feeder on the window to our side porch when we noticed a male and female cardinal always coming to that brick patio area and pecking around. After we bought the bird feeder and filled it up with bird seed especially for cardinals, they began to come to the feeder every day to eat and allowed us to watch them. We adopted them.

A couple of weeks ago, a tiny baby cardinal showed up. He’s brown right now but I still think he’s a boy because he has the little crown on top of his head like the daddy does. Mama flew up a minute later to join him. He’s such a cute little fella and Scott would have been so enamored of him, that we now also have a “grandbird.” That makes me smile. I’ve only seen the little guy twice, but I’m not as good about watching for them as my husband was.

I’ve blogged before about the necklace I got about a week after Scott was gone. He had ordered me a necklace with his thumbprint on one side and it says “We’ve got this.” on the other. We said that often. It started with Scott who would tell me all the time when I was worried or frustrated, “Baby, we’ve got this; we’ll get through it together.” Although that phrase is bittersweet to me now, and especially was on the day I received the necklace, it’s still a bold reminder of the fact that we could do anything together. I cherish that necklace, that unknowingly posthumous gift, but you won’t see me wearing it often. It’s small and fragile; I don’t want to ever risk losing or damaging it, but it’s always where I can pick it up and hold it for a few minutes in wonderment of the fact that, as he was the one struggling through the pain of a spinal injury, he thought to buy a gift to encourage me. That’s just who he was, all the time.

Another gift that I believe came from him may be a little more cryptic to others. My husband had a fantastic green thumb; he didn’t gift me with that, but I wish he had been able to. Early in our relationship he noticed a plant at my house that was almost dead. Well, it actually looked dead. My sweet Granny had died only six months before we met and this plant was from her funeral. I tried desperately but unskillfully to keep it alive and yet, even when I thought it was long gone, I hadn’t gotten rid of it. Scott said “I can save it; let me take it to my house for awhile.” I literally scoffed at him and said “Okay, go ahead; you’re welcome to try.” I think that I thought if he took it there and then had to get rid of it because it was unsalvageable, it might be easier that way. I also thought that I would feel like I really did everything I could. I did not believe he could save it. But I did not yet know of this particular talent of his.

I always over-water or under-water plants. I’ve killed everything from azaleas to cacti. I am seriously challenged in the plant-keeping department but I love them. I even bought a bouquet of tulips that looks and even feels like the real thing because that way I couldn’t help them die. But my husband, then my boyfriend, brought that plant back to life from the shadowy grips of death and it flourished. When he tried to bring it back to my house, I respectfully declined saying that I would kill it without meaning to. He said, “I’ll just check on it when I’m over here.” and I said “You don’t know the depth of my failure with plants; it would probably be dead before you got back.” So, he kept it until he moved to live in my house while we looked for a new house together. I don’t think a plant has died here since, although some are, sadly, quite close again now that he is gone.

I’ve been amazed, since we moved to our new house, how hard it is to kill a crepe myrtle. I love them because they are gorgeous when they flower. There were three different colors of crepe myrtles at our new home which we bought in January, 2020. One baby pink, one white, and one hot pink. When Scott cut them back, I got so upset. I said “They’re going to die now. There’s practically nothing left!” It seemed he had almost cut them back to half their size. Instead, they bloomed with even more flowers that spring.

Now, I know that crepe myrtles can self-propagate. We have two “babies” that appeared in our yard and have flourished quite naturally. They’re both the hot pink variety. But, within a month of Scott dying, a funny little plant began to pop up inside a square planter that stands just below our front porch steps. As it began to get larger, I thought “that does not look like anything that we picked out to put in those planters.” We had situated them more as giant dish gardens and spoke at length with the greenhouse about what would grow well together in that area of the house, with full morning sun and little shade.

One day I walked out the front door and suddenly realized what it was. It had bloomed with a gorgeous color of purple flowers I’ve never seen before but it was most definitely a crepe myrtle tree. I got in the car and drove up and down my street very slowly a couple of times. No purple crepe myrtles anywhere. I had thought that a seed from a nearby tree must have floated on the wind and somehow landed in that pot, right at my front door, but there were none to be found in that color. In fact, I haven’t yet seen another that color since this one arrived.

I researched on the internet. Hydrangeas can change color based on the acidity or alkalinity of the soil so maybe…nope; crepe myrtles don’t change colors. I don’t know how it showed up in my planter but it has grown to be over four feet tall. Today I decided to transplant it to an area in my front yard where it could continue to grow. That little tree had broken through the bottom of a heavy-duty plastic planter and was rooted into the soil beneath it. Solid boundaries could not contain it’s roots. I had to dig into the soil beneath the planter to free the roots and then break the planter to get it out, but I have re-planted it. There is a bit of browning on it and some of the roots broke but I’m trusting that resilient little guy is going to beat the odds…of having to live in my yard without Scott here.

My husband would know that keeping beautiful plants and trees alive would be one of my worries. I think He and God cooked up an unlikely surprise for me, something to make me smile but that I couldn’t inadvertently kill. (I’m still going to ask the guy who does my lawn to check on it and keep an eye on it for me, though, just to be safe.)

From memory photos, to baby birds, to jewelry, to blooming trees, and of course, to a beautiful granddaughter we eagerly anticipated together, I am learning to look for positive things in my grief. I can choose to belabor the fact that he isn’t here to enjoy all of these things, that the memories will only be just that, memories, forevermore because he’s not here to enjoy and make any new ones with me, but that is not going to help me step forward.

Side note: I have thought long and hard about this subject. This is semantics, perhaps, but I am not “moving on.” At least in my interpretation, moving on indicates leaving. “I’ve reached my top potential at this job; it’s time I moved on.”

I am moving forward. I will never leave my husband behind; he is such an enormous part of me. I am moving forward because sitting in my grief, as opposed to moving through it, is not serving me well. I think there may always be a part of me that doesn’t want to keep going without him, but I am still here and that is an indelible fact. I cannot remain my current age, refusing to move forward into the next year. I can no more choose to stay in the days when he was still beside me. If I must age then I must also adapt to these unwanted circumstances. To do that, I have to move forward, as there is no going back.

Today, I planted a beautiful tree, mysteriously gifted to me, in honor of the gifts that my husband has left with me. It’s just a “baby tree” right now but I’m going to do all that I can to grow it into a full, abundantly flowered, and delightful memorial of who my husband was to me and to the world. As it continues to grow, so will I. The tree isn’t blooming now, as we enter fall and then winter, but I expect extravagant purple blossoms in the spring. I will try my best to bloom into some version of happiness with it.

Bulbs Scott planted for me
My mysterious, purple-blossomed crepe myrtle, freshly planted
Brand new blooms from Scott’s carefully tended roses
I don’t remember what he planted here but I think it’s amaryllis, one bloom left this year.

The Stuff of Nightmares

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I was thinking about how I’ve told you that I “haven’t dreamed about him yet.”

That’s not entirely true, and yet it is. I want desperately to have a dream where he is himself, normal, healthy, happy. What I have are nightmares about his last night on earth, and those two things are nothing alike.

Trauma is a difficult mountain to climb over and leave behind you. I know. I’ve forged my way over such mountains more than once. This one pretty much takes the cake, despite the immensity of past traumas. I’m really struggling to even get started. You know when you have so many things to do that you don’t even know which task to start just to begin…so maybe you procrastinate because it all just seems overwhelming? That’s where I’m standing: in the overwhelm.

I had started therapy the end of May but there were soooo many glitches. The therapist lost my intake visit notes and had to redo my intake (which meant having to dive back into telling/reliving the night of terrors all over again, out loud), then the next visit they had changed software and she had to do the intake and create a care plan yet again because their old system would not update the new one. Then they had problems getting me back in for another appointment for almost a month…and so I quit, feeling even more defeated.

Starting over with a new program was so daunting, to have to go through all of this over again and not know if I’d ever get to the point that something felt helpful. But I have started over. I really like my current therapist and, sadly, she lost her son last September, just one year ago now, so it feels like she really and truly “gets it”. Immense grief is not a stranger to her. She has tackled seemingly insurmountable grief and appears to be flourishing in the aftermath. This therapy program is also specifically faith-based, so it aligns with my methods of coping and healing.

The nightmares start my days off on very rocky footing. I can see the way he looked at me the very last time his eyes were open, panic-stricken with asphyxiation, and I can feel the powerlessness of that moment with surprising reality. And the guilt. The guilt of having been a nurse for almost thirty years and having worked many, many codes, but being unable to do anything to help him because I was on “someone else’s playing field” and also because it’s different when it is your person, your spouse, your soulmate. My mind was an especially chaotic brand of turmoil because part of my own life was slipping away right before my eyes. And I couldn’t stop it. I wish I had put my hands on his face one more time and said, “I’m here. I love you, baby.” I wish I could have said “We’ve got this” one more time…but we didn’t. We didn’t have this at all that night. And we had nothing else ever again.

There’s a finality that fails to settle into your brain when life ends suddenly. I still, almost five months later, cannot wrap my head around it. I cannot be a widow. Surely he’ll come home carrying his backpack and his camo, insulated lunchbox and wrap his arms around me. Surely.

Those thoughts just add to the panic as I tell myself, try to remind myself, that this is all real. I’m forced to technically believe that as I take over all of the responsibilities that Scott gladly maintained as my husband. Yet I struggle daily to accept it.

They tell me I’m suffering from C-PTSD (complicated post-traumatic stress disorder) and panic attacks, major depressive disorder, complicated traumatic grief, and generalized & social anxiety. Quite a mouthful of diagnoses for just one person. They are pieces that feel as if someone else mixed the garden flowers and the country roadside fruit stand puzzles together but is expecting me to figure out how to make them all one picture. As I try to sort the pieces, none of them make sense going together. This is not the puzzle I bought at the store but it’s non-refundable.

Still, being in therapy is a milestone on the journey. My therapist said that one of the reasons I’m still feeling like I am at Day One on my journey is because I am consumed with anger. She says getting the anger under control is the key to moving on to the next step, although they come in no particular order. If I ask God to help me tackle that stage then I will eventually move through coming to terms with the rest before finally truly reaching the acceptance phase. The thing is, anger isn’t living here alone. Three more of the grief stages are piled in here with it like clowns in a tiny car. Denial, bargaining and depression cohabitate with guilt and anxiety inside this damaged vessel and they are not playing nice. These aren’t your typical, happy circus clowns either; they all resemble the Stephen King or Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights versions.

So, anger…I have to tackle anger but without letting it OUT on anyone around me. Should be interesting. My daily devotionals, quiet time, and web-ex classes I take through the counseling portal all revolve around anger for the foreseeable future. God is capable of taking hold of it but only if I hand it over and, as much as I want to, I don’t know if I can get my current grip, which is so tight that it resembles a toddler holding onto a toy they need to share, to release. There’s another prayer to add to my exhaustive list.

I am determined to get better. I am determined to heal. I am determined to let God do His thing in me. May the path become smoother as I figure it all out. No matter how long it takes, God is in the outcome.

Transitioned

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It’s hard for me to say the “D word” about Scott. I have said it. I have written it. But I don’t like it.I don’t like it at all.

He isn’t dead. His body is; I know that and that’s the part I hate. He isn’t physically here anymore and that hurts every single day. But he isn’t dead because God is not dead. My husband is alive in Christ. He has just transitioned to a new way of being. His body died, yes. He died at the hands of others. I cannot alter that reality any more than I could stop the swells at sea. And I ache over these facts every day.

My God is a deliverer and a healer. He makes all things new. Because of this, my husband’s transition was a glorious moment for him, contrasting sharply with his last hours in his earthly body. For this I am grateful. But the moment he came into glory was the moment my own worst nightmare began. For that, I am bereft of happiness and I don’t know how long that part is going to last.

I experience joy, but joy and happiness are not the same thing. Joy is an inner sanctum, a place inside your heart where you can experience positivity even when your mind cannot feel happiness at all. Our children bring me joy. Our granddaughter brings me joy. Happiness is something that seems to get farther and farther away in my rear view and I wonder if I’ll recognize it when it returns. I suppose it’s like him, though. I’d recognize him anywhere and I’ll know him immediately when my time of glory comes. Maybe one day I’ll have the opportunity to experience happiness in that way while I’m still here and I’ll know it instantly, too. I feel like being happy will come as a surprise, like hearing an urban legend many times and then discovering that it was true all along.

People say “I’m so sorry for your loss.” And it has been an enormous loss for me. But my husband is not lost. He’s just in a place where I cannot reach him, like being on deployment in the desert of Iraq and not having the ability to call home. I only wish he could even write to me from where he lives now. And that I could write back.

I haven’t had any dreams of him yet. I actually rarely even remember my dreams from sleep. I had the most ridiculous dream last week. I very realistically dreamed (apparently) that I had received an Amazon package, something I had ordered in real life. I hunted all over the house for where I had put it. I distinctly remembered opening the box, pulling out the caffeinated, orange mint flavored breath mints I had purchased, separating them into smaller ziploc bags (I spilled some) so that I could give some to my daughter-in-love who is in nursing school, put some in my purse, and saving the rest to keep here at home.

So, as I said, I searched for them everywhere because grief brain makes you terribly absent-minded and I assumed I had set them down somewhere, tucked them into a drawer, or foolishly placed them in a spot that makes no sense (like when I found my lost toothbrush in the kitchen cabinet. But, alas, no mints. I never even thought about checking Amazon to see if they had been delivered yet because I distinctly remembered them arriving. A couple of days later, I got a box in the mail and was surprised to find caffeinated orange mint flavored breath mints inside. Well, they must have accidentally sent them twice, obviously. And yet when I opened the box, they were larger than I expected them to be. Did they send a different kind? That’s when I checked Amazon and found that these were the ones I had been expecting. It ever-so-slowly occurred to me that I had woken up thinking about those mints because it was a dream. Truly incredulous, all I could think was “If I had to have a dream that was that realistic, why couldn’t Scott have been in it?”

People talk about all of these signs you see of people who have moved on from this life. I haven’t witnessed any signs. I know that if there were a way for him to be here other than in my memories, he would do so. But he is in a new place, a new home, a new spiritual body. Maybe one day he’ll come to me in some way (I pray for that and ask him to do so all the time) but it just hasn’t happened yet. I still talk to him every day as if he were here. I still tell him I love him and that I miss him all the time. I still love him and miss him all the time.

Scott’s transition from this life to the next was infinitely harder for me than it was for him. I don’t begrudge him that because what he suffered prior to that moment of beauty for him was overwhelmingly traumatic. I don’t know that I’ll ever fully heal from the terror of those hours and minutes. I’m glad that he has and that he doesn’t have to remember a moment of them because there is no pain or fear where is now. in the same way, it will be infinitely harder for my children than it will be for me when my time comes to leave.

For Scott, transition was a thing of beauty. For me, the transition from wife to widow, from soulmate to loss, has been calamitous. So transition, you see, is a matter of perspective.

My perspective is this:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

No, joy is not the same thing as happiness because we wouldn’t count it all happiness when we face trials of many kinds. But I am joyful in the fact that my husband no longer suffers the many trials he faced on this earth. There is no heartbreak. There is no anguish. There is no fear. There is no loss. Not for him. And yet the same event that brought him into that new reality forces me into the one I live now. And I will count it all joy, for one day I will also be mature and complete, not lacking anything, as well.

Why Must It Always Be War?

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Our love story was something indescribable. Trying to explain it…they don’t make the words for it. We had something that I know some people go their entire lives without being able to experience. When I’m feeling bitter and angry about losing our future together, I try to remember that.

These days my mind can be described as nothing short of mayhem. If you gave mental states a first, middle, and last name like we do people, I guess it would be Mayhem Chaos Ineptitude. That last name is inherited from the fact that, no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to control Mayhem and Chaos…erratic little devils that they are. Consuming.

This week holds big challenges for me. My mind, on the best of days of the worst of days, struggles to maintain focus or concentration. With challenges looming you’d think I’d rest my mind of weary thoughts but it has plans of its own. Sleep comes fitfully and in short supply. I doubt that this is a recipe for greater focus.

Strangely, despite anxiety, I have an odd sense of peace. How do anxiety and peace co-exist, you might ask? My answer is “in layers.”

Peace runs deep and settles my soul while I am fraught with anxious feelings on the surface. This is a paradox difficult to explain but it is something I have experienced before during another unwelcome intrusion on my life. I know, in the deep layer, that I will be okay. I know, in that place, that God has hidden me under the feathers of His wing.

For the record, God does not actually have feathers or wings; He is not an angel. That is but one example of Biblical allegory that I think embodies the feeling of protection He provides quite well.

So there is a knowing in my soul that I am wrapped in the protection of the Almighty. My soul is secure and my victory is sure.

At the same time, I experience considerate unrest. Fear is not of God but from the Father of Lies so it’s not surprising that he is still after me. I rebuke the anxiety and it flees temporarily, ever to return and sometimes tenfold. Especially with particular trials and tribulations imminent in both short and long distances ahead.

This means that my war between pandemonium and serenity is partially the cause for my lack of peace itself. Why does my brain choose anarchy when I know immediately which side I choose?

I choose to submit to the authority of the One who reigns on the side of quietude and contentment. I choose my side. And if you choose a side then you must become a warrior for that cause.

To battle for the faction of peace, instruments of defense must be held resolutely and those of offense must be utilized effectively. In this case, only spiritual armor will do.

The only offensive tool in a spiritual battle is the Word of God. The Voice of Truth. And the truth is, I am not enslaved by the enemy. I am a daughter of the King of Kings. Since the victory of my Father’s kingdom has already been accurately prophesied, in faith I have no fear.

Today, I am choosing to rest in that. I may have to choose it over and over as minutes pass, but I will fight as valiantly as I am able for the side to which I am loyal. And when I am unable, He still is.

Barren Rose Bush

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What is the word for when a rose becomes all thorns and no petals? When it languishes in the heat and drops, petal by shrunken, desecrated, dehydrated and burnt petal to the dry earth…but the thorns remain sturdy? You can’t call it a rose at all because there is no flower, but people still call it a rose bush. Why do they still call it that when there are no flowers? What is the real word for a rose bush with no roses?

~ Barren Rose Bush

Grief is Pure Poetry

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I’m bleeding but somehow no one can see the blood draining every living breath from my body.

I’m laying here, riddled with bullet holes, bright-red blood pouring from every entry and exit wound.

But they go on about their business. Life is a hurry-scurry event, after all.

No one realizes that they may slide dangerously on the thick, but slippery, scarlet, coppery-tasting substance at any moment if they’re near me.

Be careful not to come near me…

They’re not ignoring. They’re not cold. They’re not cruel.

They just cannot see the flood rising beneath their feet because it isn’t their sea.

It Isn’t Their Sea

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I’m bleeding but somehow no one can see the blood draining every living breath from my body.  

I’m laying here, riddled with bullet holes, bright red blood pouring from every entry and exit wound.

But they go on about their business. Life is a hurry-scurry event.

No one realizes that they may slide dangerously on the thick but slippery, scarlet, coppery-tasting substance at any moment if they’re near me.

They’re not ignoring.  They’re not cold.  They’re not cruel.

They just cannot see the flood rising beneath their feet because it isn’t their sea.

I’d Like One Speedy Miracle, Please.

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I’ve been thinking on something while meditating over scripture I had read today. What came to me caused me to do a little further research and here is what I have found:

We get tired of waiting on God to do something about things that we pray over. I’m saying “we” because I know I’m not alone in this.

I want to pray and have it happen…like, now would be nice, right? When Jesus performed miracles he said “Your faith has healed you; get up and walk” or a similar phrase which pertained to their own infirmity. The healing was instantaneous. Just (snaps fingers) like that. That’s how I want my miracles to go. Just (snaps again) like that.

My initial thought was “He’s in the waiting” and I spiritually rolled my teenage eyes at the Holy Spirit (awful) and whined “Yes, I know God is in the waiting but if He’s here, why can’t He do something about it now?” If you are never, ever a wayward teenager when you respond to the Holy Spirit (God), then I applaud you. I’m still trying to grow up and straighten up (pretty sure I always will be) and sometimes my own spirit misbehaves. Maybe that’s just me.

The interesting thing is what I got in my spirit 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. Yes, Jesus performed miracles and they happened immediately, upon command. I mean, He was Jesus, after all. But the people who we read about in the Bible who were healed had been struggling for a LONG time.

The paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda had been crippled for 38 years.

The woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of His garment had been bleeding for twelve years.

Casting demons out of a man and into pigs – the Bible says he had been naked and homeless “for a long time.”

Lazarus had been dead and in the grave for four days when Jesus woke him. I assure you that, to Mary and Martha, four days without him seemed like an eternity. An. Absolute. Eternity. Trust me.

You’re probably seeing a pattern like I did by now but there are many more and all of them after long (or likely long) periods of suffering except for the man whose ear was sliced off when Jesus was detained. 𝘏𝘦 got healed immediately.

These people came to Jesus with faith that He could heal them. If they had faith that He could heal them, at least most of them were probably men and women of faith already. So, they had probably been praying for healing or easing of suffering for a long time.

Enter Jesus, stage left…

When Jesus woke Lazarus from the dead, he had received word six days earlier that Lazarus was very ill and He had been asked to come heal him.

Jesus’ response? No, we’re going to wait two more days. After two days he told the disciples that Lazarus was dead and they needed to go to him now.

“But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” John‬ ‭11‬:‭4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

He waited for the glory of God. Jesus loved Lazarus so much that he wept over the suffering of Mary and Martha when he arrived. But before that, he waited. He told the disciples “Lazarus is dead. And for your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there, for now you will really believe. Come, let’s go see him.” John‬ ‭11‬:‭14b-15‬ ‭NLT‬‬

“For your sakes…” For your sakes… For YOUR sakes…

He waited for his friend to die so that others could experience the miracle that the Son of Man performed. So that they could be witness to His glory. He waited so that people would believe.

*********

I don’t like waiting; I’m no good at it. Well, strike that. I have the Fruit of the Spirit and patience is one of those…so I have it but I’m not well-practiced at it because I don’t like it. (There’s that pesky teenager again.)

But He IS in the waiting. If we are waiting for something to happen, it’s going to be in His timing and there’s going to be a reason for that timing. I don’t know what it is and you don’t either, but He has a purpose in the waiting.

That still doesn’t mean I have to like it…but I do have to trust it. And just maybe that will make patience a little easier to use. (But I’m not praying for patience; I’ll pray for grace. If you pray for patience, He may just give you another reason to need it.)

The Breath of Life

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God fixed my broken pieces, but He did it by way of a soulmate he grew, hand-plucked and then planted right into my life. Now my pieces are struggling to remain attached to each other.

My mind keeps going back, over and over and over, to the moment the doctors walked down the hallway toward me, the disastrous results of my husband’s code blue evident on their faces. I cannot stop feeling what it was like to pleadingly and raggedly cry out “No…NO…NOOOOOOO!!!” and then slide down the wall in sobs as my legs failed to hold my weight.

I think I “knew” when I left his room. I’m a nurse. Not only was he not breathing but he had no airway. In the back of my mind I knew the statistics. I knew the potential and likely outcomes at that point. I knew my likelihood of loss. But I was praying for a miracle. I was holding onto hope like I was falling off of a cliff where the raveling thread of someone’s threadbare sweater was all I had to hold onto. I spent about an hour, give or take, grasping that tiny thread so tightly that it wore shreds into the skin of my palms. Or maybe that was my fingernails.

And then I drowned.

I could feel myself suffocating as I slid down the wall. As one doctor said “go get her a chair” and then told me to tuck my head and breathe. I had been holding onto the ICU visitor phone asking if my husband had been brought over yet when I heard them coming down the hall toward me and I remember seeing the handset hanging from the cord, the cord dangling, as I sat in a crumpled heap on the cold hallway floor. I remember men who had walked toward me, four abreast, all of their faces dour, the one clearly intending to deliver the news just a step ahead of the rest searching my face as he prepared to end my life as I knew it. And I could not breathe. I don’t even know how the cries for mercy made their way out except for the breath of wind that caught in my throat as they approached.

My chest clenched. I don’t know what happened to my heart but if you told me it had stopped beating right then, it would not surprise me. I wonder if that’s what cardiac arrest feels like. I wonder if my husband felt like that, too.

I read a post the other day where a widow said that her husband had “died” once before, during a heart attack, for several minutes while they resuscitated him. When he “died permanently” several years later he wasn’t afraid to go. He had told her that during that first time, he knew exactly when he left his body because the pain stopped entirely, there was suddenly no fear and a sensation he could only define as “euphoria and complete peace” overcame him. He thought to himself that he was leaving this earth and he was okay with it. He didn’t bewail the fact that he was leaving others behind but just knew he was safe and that it was okay. He was okay and they’d all be okay.

I hope that’s what it was like for my husband. Of all of the people I know in this world, my husband 100% deserved peace. He spent many years of his life not having it.

There’s a part of me that wishes he’d know how much we miss him, how much we mourn his loss, but not when I think of what that would put him through. So I guess I just want him to know how much and how completely he was loved and how important he was to people here. I hope he knows now that he made a difference, left a legacy of goodness, kindness, compassion, empathy. And I wish I could see his sweet face when he realized that. I loved the way his face lit up because someone really saw him. When someone saw him as the person I already knew he was.

We take breathing for granted. Air goes in; air comes out. We don’t even think about it most of the time. I’ve had many days since that night, well, that early, early morning, where I had to force myself to inhale. It truly felt like my body wouldn’t do it automatically. Or to exhale just so new air could come in. I remember thinking, theoretically, if I didn’t breathe right now, how long would it take? It felt unnatural to just breathe. Like it feels unnatural to be here when he isn’t.

I believe my heart shattered into a million, zillion pieces that day so how can it still feel like my heart is breaking? Or does it heal a little and the scabs then get ripped open every time a thought crosses my mind, those hundreds of times a day. That cannot be good for healing but I don’t know how to stop it because I never know from which direction the assault will come barreling toward me. It’s completely indiscernible until it hits, until my heart plummets to the ground again beneath blood and ash.

Four of “Lillian’s fish” (our granddaughter’s) died from lack of oxygen due to the hurricane this past week; I had no generator to power the aerator. Scott named them Lillian’s fish (even though we’d had them since early 2022) because she loved watching them from soon after she arrived on the outside of her mommy. We subsequently picked out even more colorful fish to entertain her. The fact that some of those fish died, ones he wanted her to have (albeit at our house because he thought that would make her ask to come visit more) has made me cry more than once. Going to the store where we bought them to get her a few more tomorrow will make me cry again…hopefully I can hold it until I get to the car. I’d rather lose my bladder in public than fall apart. People “get” medical issues (like whatever they might assume would cause me to urinate on myself) better than they “get” grief. Grief makes people uncomfortable.

But now, when I say “Lillian, where’s PopPop?” (she is eight months old now,) she turns her head and looks to his picture. That made me cry the first time but kind of makes my heart smile now. I tell her “PopPop loves you, Lillian. That’s Lillian’s PopPop.” She studies his photograph in a way that makes it look as if he is familiar even though she was only just over four months old when he died. It’s like she is trying to remember where she saw him and can’t quite place it, her face so serious and contemplative. It’s a poignant experience because she usually gets distracted so easily but she stares at his photo for a long time without looking away.

And so I breathe. There are moments sprinkled, however sparsely right now, throughout my days that cause me to breathe.

According to my research, Ruach is the word spoken three times in Hebrew scripture for the breath of God. It’s not described so much as a physical being or an entity but as God’s essence that creates and sustains life. Sometimes it is translated as “Spirit of God”, the Holy Spirit.

However, the actual Hebrew term for “spirit,” ruah (notice the similarity) is used 389 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. Ruah is translated using three different words: wind, breath, and spirit. Context decides the translation, but in Ezekiel it is often used with dual context, like breath and spirit are the same thing.

So the Holy Spirit IS breath. Not all breathe by nature of the Spirit’s breath, although all are invited to, but when my natural breath fails to sustain me, the Holy Spirit can. Yes, at some point my body will fail and the Holy Spirit will leave my earthly domain as my own spirit exits, but when my mind no longer wants to breathe, I have a backup generator as a Christian. I didn’t have to go to Lowe’s and pay a hefty sum for this one as it was bequeathed to me and all I had to do was accept the gift.

If you’ve ever been through a high-force hurricane, you know the value of a good generator. And, oh, have I been living in the eye of a hurricane these past almost-four-months. I’ve been living on the strength of my generator ever since the power went out in May.

I’m just going to keep filling up that generator with fuel because without it my life is so very much more uncomfortable…which doesn’t even seem possible but, alas, it is true. It turns out that the Word and prayer are the only fuel it accepts. The dual power generator I have at home (which spontaneously elected not to function following hurricane Idalia this past week) works on gasoline or propane. They’re a lot more expensive.

As you read this, I hope this week finds you healthy. If you are grieving, I hope you have the generator of breath. If you don’t, I know where you can find one for free.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Published on by God is in the Outcome1 Comment

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me.”

I’ve heard this scripture passage hundreds of times in my life.  The 23rd Psalm.  When I was in about 5th grade, I earned a silver (colored) coin in Sunday School for memorizing it.  It has been somewhat liturgical for me until now.  You say it, you know it, you know what it means.

And then one day you 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 what it means.

Yea, though I walk through the valley (as I’m definitely not on a mountain-top these days) of the 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩….  Suddenly the scripture takes on new meaning.

I am living in the shadow of death.  It looms overhead in everything I do, making the world appear dark, cold, clammy, scary.  Death is a giant, weighty boulder blocking the sun from shining on me.

And the next part goes “I will fear no evil for Thou art with me.”

This is where it gets tricky.  God is with me; of that I have no doubt.  It’s the “I will fear no evil” part that trips me up now and again.  After what happened to my husband, there are 𝚜𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 to be afraid of.  I can’t even list them all but one of them is undeniably a fear of losing someone else in the sudden manner in which I lost Scott.  I’ve always known we’re not promised tomorrow but nothing has ever quite made it as real and as terrifying as this.

I’m trying hard not to live as if there’s a goblin in every corner but it’s honestly not easy.  I watched him go with my own eyes and stood there yelling for people to 𝘥𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨!!! I cannot go into more detail at this time about the circumstances but suffice it to say that it is the most traumatic situation I have ever suffered in my whole life. As a nurse, I’ve seen a lot of people die and I have cried over most of them either during or later, but this was my person and in this scenario there was nothing I could do to help him. So call it severe PTSD (as the therapist has) but I have enormous difficulty with trying not to be afraid of anything that could happen to people I love day-to-day.

I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.  Now, this part really was liturgy for me.  I know that there are many references to shepherds protecting sheep in the Bible and I chalked it up to another shepherd reference, which it is, but I didn’t understand what it really meant.

This is what I learned:  The rod and staff can be broadly categorized as tools of protection and guidance, respectively. The rod warded off predators; the staff was a guiding tool with a hook on one end to secure a sheep around its chest. Only the two tools together provided comfort to the sheep.

Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me.  Thy rod wards off predators (they are many these days but they are supernaturally being warded off because The Lord is my shepherd.) Thy staff guides me, keeping an arm around me to keep me from straying too far (into anxiety, for one) and showing me how to move next.  They comfort me.

The thing about that is, because sin and evil were invited into our world way back in the Garden, God can ward off predators but evil still has an opportunity to have its day.  If that weren’t the case, my sweet mother-and-father-in-law wouldn’t have lost two sons within 15 months.  So it’s scary.  I AM comforted by the fact that He watches over me and will send angels to fight for me in spiritual warfare, I also know that the devil gets his day sometimes.  He’ll never win the war but there are battles he keeps gnashing his teeth through just to try to get a leg up.  

So I will keep repeating this Psalm because, now that I know I’m actually in the figurative valley of the shadow of death, I need the reassurance that I’m not here alone.  

I feel like I’m living my life between the two gardens. I guess we all are somewhere in between the Garden of Eden, when life feels like paradise and you can’t believe how blessed you are, and the Garden of Gethsemane, where sorrow runs rampant through your veins and you know there is know way out of the pain you are and will continue going through. I think one of the hardest parts for me is that my two gardens met up in one moment of time. One moment he was here and it was still paradise; the next he was gone and I haven’t been able to fully lift my head or my body since.

So, I’m adding in a little bit of John 14 (this part is from the Amplified version because the wording is clarified in just the way I need it):

“I have told you these things while I am still with you. But the Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will help you remember everything that I have told you. Peace I leave with you; My [perfect] peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid. [Let My perfect peace calm you in every circumstance and give you courage and strength for every challenge.]”

‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭25‬-‭27‬ ‭AMP‬‬

You’ll notice that in the bracketed Amplified text it explains “give you courage and strength for every challenge.” It does NOT say “Don’t stress out because I’m never gonna let anything bad happen.” Nope. This part: “Do not let your heart be troubled; nor let it be afraid.”  actually indicates that we WILL have trouble. Let My perfect peace calm you anyway.

His perfect peace has the ability to calm me, to shield my mind from gnawing thoughts that constantly try to invade.  His perfect peace is a forcefield.  I cannot control what is going to happen in the world around me.  But I can know that He gives perfect peace in the midst of immeasurably difficult circumstances.  I’ve felt it but now I need to cultivate it.  I need to focus on not feeding the demon of fear but fertilizing the seed of faith and, from that, increasing my measure of peace, because God does have the power to pour that out over me.

Daniel ought to have been terribly afraid in the lion’s den.  And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  Moses and the Israelites as they stood before a great sea with enemies charging up from behind while they seemingly had nowhere to go.  But fear was an unnecessary evil (although it most likely still existed) because God’s plan went before them. He calms fears.

The long and short of it is this:  bad things do happen to the best of people.  My testimony to that is my husband and the deplorable way that he died.  But “Do not be anxious or worried about anything, but in everything [every circumstance and situation] by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, continue to make your [specific] requests known to God. And the peace of God [that peace which reassures the heart, that peace] which transcends all understanding, [that peace which] stands guard over your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus [is yours].” Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬-‭7‬ ‭AMP‬‬

A peace that transcends all understanding.  It’s over and above my head and my pay grade.  It’s a peace that just simply shouldn’t exist in some circumstances but it does anyway simply because He is God.  I’ve felt it.  I want to bottle it up and drink it for breakfast lunch and dinner every single day.

But it cannot be bottled because it has already been written down.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner scripture is my new diet.  If I keep feeding myself then I become less weak.  So why wouldn’t I feed myself?  Laziness? Apathy? Forgetfulness? Busyness? Depression? I still need nourishment.  “I lift my eyes unto the hills.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.” Psalm 121:1

For the record, I’m still going to struggle with this.  Being a human makes me susceptible to attacks any time, day or night.  I’m still going to be afraid sometimes.  I’m still going to be angry.  I’m still going to wish it wasn’t like it is.  But I’m going to redouble my efforts to combat those feelings with the Sword of the Spirit.  At least I’m fighting back (for today.)