Tag: sadness

Even If…

Published on by God is in the OutcomeLeave a comment

Written December 3, 2023

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. Genesis 50:20

I’m trying to ascertain where this is going to fit into my life, my situation, and my grief.

The enemy was alive and well in that hospital when my husband died. He thwarted possibilities for recovery over and over by using the actions (and inaction) of people. He stopped every action that would have turned it around. I cannot count the number of times, the number of decisions, that could have turned this all around and let me drive home together with my husband. I know each and every one of them but they are many. A tidal wave of failures, one right after the other. An indefensible path to an outcome that we can never return from.

I remember praying in the room with him, when he was having trouble breathing, more and more so. Praying “God help him.” Praying with a security guard in the ICU waiting room while they were coding him. For this stranger, I will always be grateful because he spoke words that refused to be plucked from the whirling dervish of panicked thoughts inside my head. When he left to go back to his work post, I remember texting and asking my Daddy to pray and then saying “Jesus, please, help him. Please bring him back. I need him.” Something like those words over and over and over again. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

I do not believe that God chose this path for my husband. I believe He knew it would happen because He is omniscient. I believe He could have stopped it because He is omnipotent. I believe He was with me in that waiting room, with my husband in his hospital room for every terrifying second he was still within his earthly body, and with my mother-in-law as she traveled to be with me, because He is omnipresent.

So why didn’t we get our miracle?

Because God gave humans freedom of choice. He could have forced Adam & Eve to worship him. Made them bow to Him and serve Him. But humans would have then been slaves. If a man or woman tries to force you to love them and stay with them, how much more likely are you to try to get away, to end up hating them? No, He gave us free will.

Part of Joshua 24:15 says “Choose this day whom you will serve…” That day, some people chose wrong. I’m not calling anyone a Satanist. We all choose wrong sometimes. When you have an attitude or are being prideful, you’re choosing wrong. When you are arrogant. When you gossip. When you snap at someone because you’re hangry. We’re all guilty of choosing wrong. Some do more often than others.

For some, even kindness and compassion are difficult to display. And then, mixed in with bad decisions, there are probably just some plain accidents and some ignorance of what to do sometimes…and this time, with us, unfortunately an egregious amount of outright negligence when it came to people, trained and licensed, to whom we entrusted his safety.

There are myriad reasons why he’s not here anymore but it all comes down to the fact that sometimes the enemy wins a battle, already knowing he will never win the war. He (the enemy) knows what the Bible says. He believes in God because, to put it gently, they’ve met. Satan knows Him. He’s just always trying to see if he can sway more people to his side while he’s still got the chance.

For some people, loss does cause a sway. Some people cannot imagine how there could be a good God if people who don’t deserve to die, do. The thing is, God doesn’t cause those things. Satan made sickness, not God. And sometimes faithful people don’t get their healing this side of Heaven. I’m not going to pretend to know what God sees that He allows it to happen. But I do know that what we see is like looking through an old-fashioned keyhole. Our vision is so very limited, just what you can see by putting your eye up to that little keyhole. God can already see the whole world of things on the other side of the door. The full panoramic view. I trust that He loves me even when I don’t understand. I trust that He is for me when all else seems to be against me.

My granddaughter is going to the doctor for shots today; one of her parents will have to help hold her still while she receives them. When my children were young, I took them to the doctor for vaccinations, too. I remember the look on my sons’ faces when they were little. That “I thought you loved me; why did you help them do that to me? You didn’t protect me” look. But I was protecting them. From chicken pox and pertussis and polio. I knew something they didn’t. I knew it would be a moment of pain for a lifetime of protection. I could see what they couldn’t.

As for my husband, glory to God, he is enjoying himself now. There is no pain, no heartache, no loss, no weeping, no disappointment. He went through so much of that in his life and I’m so thankful that he’s free of it all now. That doesn’t change how much I selfishly wish he was here with me.

As for me and my house, we will still serve the Lord. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago (in the beginning chapters of the book of Daniel) were going to be thrown into the fiery furnace. They told the king that God would save them but then said even if He doesn’t, we won’t worship your idols. We’re still going to worship only God.

God not stopping the tidal wave of events that caused my husband’s demise does not make me hate him any more than my kids, knowing I loved them and cared for them, stayed angry at me after shots. They immediately held onto me afterwards because, even if I allowed something that hurt them, they still knew I was their best protector, biggest fan, and first love.

God still loves me just as he loved my sweet husband. I don’t know why He allowed him to be taken away so young and left me here. I don’t know what plans He still has for me or what purpose He wants me to fulfill but Here am I, Lord. Send me.

I’m always, always going to wish that things had turned out differently. I’m always going to dream about our plans to grow old together, travel, play with grandbabies, and all the things. But even still, I trust that one day I will be okay. I trust that one day He will bring joy and purpose back into my life.

By the time you’re reading this, it will have been a while since it was written. I write because I need you to know that, even when there was wrong done that caused the death of my husband, even though I run a race against anger every day, trying to head him off at the pass with forgiveness, I am still about my Father’s business.

Choose, this day, whom you will serve. I’m still choosing You, Abba God. I’m still choosing You.

It Isn’t Their Sea

Published on by God is in the OutcomeLeave a comment

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.

The Breath of Life

Published on by God is in the OutcomeLeave a comment

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.

Forge Ahead: Forward Motion

Published on by God is in the OutcomeLeave a comment

July 15th, 2023

FORWARD MOTION…

You’re used to my posts being long so I don’t really feel like I need to tell you…but it is long, so…

I’ve been quiet on the grief front for a couple of days. If you can get past the first two paragraphs, this one is a little different than most of them have been, at least lately.

Many of you are probably saying, “thank goodness…that stuff was heavy and sad.” That’s why I often post grief trigger warnings when I know it’s a particularly rough day with darkness in my thoughts. If you need to steer clear of other people’s trauma, you’ll be forewarned (that’s not what today is about, though.)

Others may be thinking, “Good, maybe she’s finally able to get past it, move along, now…” Oh, how I wish there were a sign that I would ever be a “past it, “ or at least an end in sight to the gnawing heartache that seems to be my constant companion from now on.

But I’m writing about something new today. A couple of days ago, I felt a searching in my spirit as I pondered at least the previous week’s worth of writing. Where was the hope? What was the purpose? I use writing to cleanse my own thoughts and spirit, to relinquish some of the weight that sits like an albatross around my neck throughout the days and nights.

Laying it all out on paper or, these days, inside a Word document journal that I sometimes copy to Facebook, seems to take the chaos, the scrambled thoughts, each one warring for top billing in my head, and bring them outside where it is easier to sort them, like various colored Post-It notes that I can move around, cross out and re-write, or scrunch up with a quiet rustle and toss in the wastebasket, swish! Writing allows me temporary respite from the swirling tornado of thoughts by calming the winds down enough to let me try to make sense of some of them.

So as I meandered through some of my earlier posts and then through the last week, I noticed a stark difference, as I’m sure many of you reading them have, as well. My hope was failing. The farther and farther away I seem to unwittingly and unwantingly drift from the days when Scott was here with me, the deeper it has felt like the cave I was sitting in became. It’s a dark cavern without a light source or company, a cold, damp, uncomfortable place with only jagged rocks to rest upon and no visible way to feed my soul; I must feel my way through everything in the dark. I didn’t want to stay there but seemed to have lost the map to leave since I can never go out through the same entrance I came in. I have to find another way out. There has to be another way.

Here’s a short detour but I promise it will all come together; bear with me.

Many have mentioned, either in comments, private messages, or telephone conversation, that I should use my grief to write a book. That sometimes my writing seems to make enough sense to some of them that they can come closer to feeling what I describe on this journey.

What most of you don’t know is that, for several years now, since Scott first encouraged me to retire from nursing, he had been trying to inspire me to write a book. He’d actually said, “you should be a writer, seriously” before that but when I retired, he told me he felt like it was something I was supposed to do. Like it was something God had called me to but I had never followed through.

I had started a few novels throughout the years before but would get a chapter or two in, or even only a prologue, and then just not know where to go with it. I also had various pages of writing that didn’t start as any kind of book but that I wondered what they were supposed to be, where they were supposed to go from there.

Part of the reason was courage (or lack thereof) and, if I’m being brutally honest with myself, lack of faith. If I truly am called to write an entire book, then God is going to be the one who formulates the direction, the idea bank, the path to completion, and then anoint me to receive the words He pours out over me. I was trying to find faith in myself, in my own abilities, and doing it that way just gave me complete writer’s block Every. Single. Time. And from there it just felt pointless to continue.

I started praying a couple of nights ago, at 2:00 in the morning, actually, for clarity regarding specifically this endeavor. Am I called to do it? Would it be any good? Would anyone ever want to read it? Would I even be able to figure out how to send it to a publisher or make a wise and well-informed decision about whether self-publishing would be the best route to take to gain any readership at all? I don’t care about notoriety; I would just really like people to actually enjoy reading it and be able to feel immersed in it if I’m going to write it.

I don’t know much about marketing. I don’t know much about book editing, cover art, catchy titles, or even if my ideas are really in a niché that would catch anyone’s attention. Actually, the first novel I began, several years ago, falls into two potentially conflicting categories, areas that some people who read one might be offended by the other and vice versa. But for me, they fit together, hand in hand.

I know that’s cryptic but I’m not really ready to divulge any more about the actual book just yet. Just imagine it being like the way that there are Pharisee-like Christians who believe that dirty, lost, unsaved people are too unscrupulous and far-gone to be welcomed in God’s house. But they’re not. Jesus says they’re never too far gone to come to him, period…even on the cross. Anyway, let’s just say it falls somewhere along those lines…sort of. A conflict of alternate beliefs, in a way.

It started when I was sitting in Miami after leaving my nursing job. I was down there to stay with Scott for a week and, although we had five days to spend together, he had to work two shifts in the middle of my stay. I had kept myself busy; there is a lot to do in Miami and I won’t deny taking a couple of trips to my favorite pastry and coffee place for almond croissants, Cuban coffee, and spinach empanadas.

But during one of those days, I was sitting alone in the sweet AirBNB where Scott had been staying during this contract, and truly just out-of-the-blue, something popped into my head that I knew I needed to get down on paper. I grabbed my iPad (which is more like a laptop, with a keyboard), opened a Word Document, and just started to type words that flowed from somewhere I couldn’t describe.

It wasn’t like I was thinking through phrasing, metaphors, context, or plot development. It was like what some people I know call a “download” from God. Some may disagree, and that’s okay and I 100% love and respect every single one of you, too. But I knew that, although there are similarities to some events in my life (they say you write best when you write what you know), most of it just came from what seemed like a whisper.

I typed furiously because the words, the story, were coming faster than I could keep up. It was only a couple of pages long but took me just minutes to write. It felt like a prologue, a middle of the story piece that then flashes back to how it all started. I showed Scott when he got back from work. I eventually showed a handful of friends because I wanted to know if it was intriguing to them, if it drew them in. All responses were, and vehemently, “You have to finish this; you have to write the rest of it. Can I read it when you’re done?”

I’m not tooting my own horn because, in a way, I feel like I didn’t even write it. It was inspired from a seemingly intangible source (maybe intangible l, but known to me). But several times following this, I tried to sit down and figure out where the story was supposed to go from this one little blurb. I didn’t know how to flesh it out.

Despite feeling like I didn’t write the first part, I felt responsible for figuring out the rest and that felt really big, overwhelming. Everything I contemplated felt like something others would think was dumb or boring or trying too hard or (insert any number of negative remarks here). Every time, I walked away from the dining room table defeated. Man…that enemy is a smooth talker, eh? Sucks you right into his vortex where you feel ill-equipped to muscle your way back out of the centrifuge.

After that 2:00 in the morning prayer session this week, I woke up at around 6:00 the next (well, the same) morning and, before even brushing my teeth, getting coffee, or making breakfast for my baby boy, I grabbed my iPad and the mini “desk” I use when I’m writing from bed, and located that very first prologue I had written, hidden in my iCloud files.

Instead of trying to just pick up the story and run with whatever popped in my head or getting stuck because nothing did, I prayed again and then scribbled out an outline. The entire book. Rising tension, climactic discovery, resolving conflict, all of it. There are 24 chapters unless I add or take away during the rest of the writing process. Each of those chapters already has a plan, a road map like I wish I had for this part of my life.

Somehow, knowing that I would be finishing something that my adoring husband always encouraged me to do feels like it needs to be done. He would have been so proud of me if he had been here to see me finish; I’ll regret that one day when it’s done, that I didn’t do it when he was still here to see it, but I will have done something he felt was important and assured me would be successful. And even if I finish writing it but it never goes anywhere, that will be a success. I’ll know I did it.

Maybe it will be successful (by the world’s standards) or maybe it won’t. Maybe I’m called to do it or maybe I’m doing it because it feels good to be doing something for Scott, in a weird way, at least something he had always wanted for me.

I say all the time that I try to tell God that I am not good with subtlety. I pray for neon signs because the more faint arrows pointing which direction I should go seem to go unnoticed too easily for me. I know I probably talk too much and listen too little (quiet in the peanut gallery, please.) I’m not going to try to pretend to know, for sure, if this is His purpose for my life now or if I’m called to write this book because there are people who will like it or even because there is someone out there who needs to hear it…maybe it’s only one person but that one person can glean something from it that they really need in their life.

I’m writing it, though. In the last two days, as I’ve been radio silent here on Facebook (and in my own journal), I have written a complete outline and almost five chapters. I tend to write rough drafts of each chapter then go back and tweak them rather than doing the whole thing and starting over. I have the rough draft of Chapter 5 and am about halfway through the rewrite of it. I’m sure I’ll reread it again when it’s finished and do the same thing with the whole book when it’s complete, but I’m finishing up Chapter five out of 24 today.

Who knows, I may get a second wind (my energy levels still leave a lot to be desired) and start on six.

After it’s finished, I have NO idea where to go with it or what to do next but I’ve decided not to get bogged down and discouraged by that part just now. For today, I am thankful I spent time in prayer and petition two nights ago. I’m thankful for an early morning answer that sparked me to begin doing something that is making me feel productive and, like Scott, would be, proud that I’m doing it.

I know I’m still going to have rough days. Like my dear, wise friend told me, “Grief isn’t a choice; grief just is.” But today I’m able to lift my head and choose gratitude and forward motion in at least one plane of my life. I’m not moving on from Scott, but I’m moving forward, at least for today.

P.S. Look at my handsome hubby. We always had a different kind of smiles when we were together. Life was always good when we were side by side. ♥️

Gift from Heaven, First Class Mail…

Published on by God is in the OutcomeLeave a comment

May 26th, 2023

I lost it today. Fully lost it.

The mail came. I got a notification that a package had been delivered and I didn’t order anything. But I’ve gotten a couple of things that someone has sent from Amazon in kindness over the last couple of weeks so I figured that’s what it was.

You’re guessing what happened because you’ve seen it in some movie somewhere. Because this kind of thing only happens on the Hallmark Channel. But it did.

He sent me a gift. 😭💔

I opened the package and there was an envelope inside. I opened it and that’s when it happened. The floodgates opened but so did the ache in my heart explode.

It said, “Love, Scott”

I can’t explain the plethora of feelings that overtook me then. I started hard, ugly-cry, sobbing, folding over into myself. This is it, the last gift ever. The last surprise. The last…the last…the last…. When I tell you I cried, I mean that it was a hurricane of emotion pouring out, felt like my soul was shaking, felt like an emptying of my spirit…felt like…loss. And beauty, all at one time. It was tumultuous.

Scott used to randomly go on Amazon and pick something out of my “saved for later” queue and have it sent to me. Sometimes he would be home when it came. Sometimes he would be in Miami or New Hampshire, or North Carolina. A cute pair of sandals. Earrings. Something I’d been wanting to get for Lillian before she was even here. A dress. An air fryer. There would be no occasion. He just wanted to literally spoil me. He just wanted to give to me. He just wanted to love me and make sure I knew it, all the time. And this is the last.

There was a cute wooden box inside. I had trouble opening it. Luke & Patrice were here so Luke had his arms wrapped around me as I tried to reel it in, the tidal wave of emotion that was drowning me. Patrice cried, holding Lillian, in the other chair. When I did get it open, a silver chain and charm were inside. The side I saw first was his fingerprint. He left a piece of himself for me. The flip side was engraved: “I love you more. 3/21/17,” our marriage anniversary.

I know it was from him. Not some well-meaning family member or friend. I know a lot of people say I love you more but it came from China or Thailand or something. That stuff always takes weeks and weeks to get here. No way someone ordered it a week ago. We didn’t even get his body back to the funeral home until last Saturday so there was no time for someone to get his fingerprint and have it sent. It was 100% from him.

I love that he was thinking of me. I love that he was so thoughtful in his choice of gifts, as he always was. He was always very sentimental. This present just shows exactly who Scott was. Exactly how he treated me and loved me. But, oh, how it still hurts. It hurts so much because it was the last one and my life will never be the same. I will find a way to pick up and carry on for my family but a part of my life is irrevocably changed in a way that I hate. I want him back so badly. He should be HERE, with ME. He should be here. And that just hurts. 💔💔💔

I swear my life with Scott WAS just like a movie on the Hallmark Channel, although now it feels like it should be on Lifetime. I always said we had our very own fairytale.