Tag: spouse

Anniversaries are Supposed to be Happy Occasions…right?

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I didn’t make a post yesterday because I needed, for my own sanity and ability to put one foot in front of the other, to essentially pretend that it was another, everyday kind of day. None of my days will ever be the kind of normal I want them to be again; yesterday was certainly anything but “normal.”

May 10th. One year. A whole year. The longest year of my life and yet…wasn’t he just here yesterday? I will continue to say that I really don’t understand how time works after all of this. Or how it can be that my brain knows he is gone but my heart…my heart still thinks he’ll walk in the door any minute. My heart still jumps when I see his location on my phone and it says he’s home. For a split second, every time, I want to get up and go find him. And then after the split second comes the sinking feeling that he cannot be at our home because he has a new one with Jesus.

Tornados hitting the county, a tree falling and crushing my new baby almond tree, my patio furniture being slung all over the place, and no power most of the day while Lillian was with me kept my thoughts busy in the early morning. We hid in the hallway and played with flashlights with all of the curtains, shutters, and doors in the house closed until the danger had passed, then walked window to window to survey what damage we could see from inside. Soon after, a sweet friend took time out of her own busy, kid-filled schedule to just come sit in our powerless house and talk with me for a couple of hours. We talked about a myriad of things but really didn’t focus on Scott. Oh, I thought about him all day long..he’s in most of my thoughts every day…but I couldn’t really talk about him yesterday. I had wanted to spend the day celebrating who he was but then realized I could not talk about him much at all on this “anniversary day” or I would lose what composure I was managing to maintain, a slim cord wrapped around the bulging chaos of grief that wanted to spill out. So I just kept pretending.

A little later my kids started showing up to hang out while we all waited for power to return at our respective homes. We all laughed at Lillian’s antics, which tend to amp up when there are so many of her favorite people there to watch, and everyone tiptoed around what day it was…or more accurately, around what this day looked like, felt like last year. With no power, no TV or music or phones for distraction, it was a blessing to be occupied by casual conversation with others the whole day.

Luke and Patrice asked me to eat supper with them but Austin and Taylor had already invited me to go out to dinner with them at the beautiful 406 restaurant. They took me with them to their anniversary dinner and then insisted on paying for my dinner and theirs. I didn’t realize last year that it happened on their anniversary. I’ve found, along the way, that there is a LOT I don’t remember at all about those days.

Our power was restored and, thankfully, I was able to get some sleep with the A/C on. Much needed sleep because, although I’ve been dreading the arrival of this date for awhile, what I didn’t anticipate was the 9th being much worse than the 10th this time around.

The 9th, throughout the day, was a replay of what we were doing this time last year. Waiting for him to be called to pre-op. Kissing him goodbye in the pre-op area before they took him back. Telling him I loved him and he was going to be fine; I’d see him when he woke up. Sitting with his parents in the waiting room while he was in surgery. Saying goodbye to them while I was waiting for him to be taken up to a room. Seeing him at 7:00 p.m. And then it got really hard. You see, I never saw him on the 10th. Well, I did. I laid in the bed with him but he was already gone. Re-living, again, the hours from 7 p.m. to 11:43 p.m. was brutal. And then remembering the time from then until 12:45 a.m., frantically pacing a waiting room I had been shuffled to and left alone in, trying to get a hold of people I needed, until doctors came to tell me it was over…life, as I knew it and loved it, was over. And the feeling of the cold wall against my back and my shoulder as I slid to the floor, unable to hold my own weight. No. No. No.

That film has played in my head many times during sleep over the last year but usually, while awake, I’ve been able to redirect myself. There are too many whys, what ifs, why didn’t I’s, why didn’t theys, and the ever present “what else could I have done; what should I have done differently to make them save him.” I don’t have a choice when I’m asleep, until I wake in sweat, but in the daytime I can usually waylay the thoughts, except for this time. It’s like when you think about the Challenger explosion, or 9/11, or the Oklahoma City bombing, and you not only remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at that moment but you can feel the shock and devastation you experienced then. This time I was unable to let go of it until I had walked through much of those hours again. The last hours. I’m sure “anniversaries” are different for everyone but I now know that the anniversary of the day before will always be harder than the day they officially called off the code and delivered news to me. By then, he was at peace…and I was desperately clinging to strands of faith that one day I’d find peace here before I go to be with him again.

Looking back, this year has been a picture of God’s hand at work after tragedy. Friends I’m blessed with rallied around and poured love over our family. Some of those same friends have been very steadfast throughout this whole year, understanding that this wasn’t a pain that would disappear after the visitors and meals stopped coming, after the funeral was done. Financially I shouldn’t have been able to maintain what I have been able to thus far. Many times I thought I may be forced to break mine and Scott’s promise to the kids that I would stay home to keep Lillian at least until her mama finished nursing school…but God. Every time I prayed I could keep the promises that Scott and I had made, every single time, God made a way. While I will have to return to work soon, it won’t be before what we committed to. I’m not sure what that work will be but God has given me a year to heal and learn how to manage my grief before needing to concentrate on whatever my new job will entail. I do not even have words to express how thankful I am for this time.

And Lillian, my beautiful, sweet granddaughter. God knew, long before we did, how much she was going to be needed in our family, the light she would bring in darkest sorrows, the joy she would spread even when sadness seemed to reign over everything, the hope she would sprinkle over grown ups, not even knowing that she was doing it.

I haven’t posted much online lately but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing about him. This last month, especially, has given me much to write. Now, though, for the most part, I am saving my words for print. I still have a lot to learn about publishing and a lot of choices to make about how to do this, but if everything goes well, and I believe God is in it so it will happen, I will have a book out sometime this year. I always thought my novel would be the first (and really only) book I would write but this book has written itself in my words but by God’s voice of hope intermingled with my trauma. I’ve decided to finally tell about what happened to my husband and how he died…why he died. I have also decided to add in some other very sensitive subjects about loss, widowhood, and being left behind, that I have written over the last year but decided were not social media material. They’ll be in my book. I’m saying this now because Scott really wanted me to publish my novel. He was proud of my writing, even when I felt like I couldn’t get it right, sounding like I wanted. He believed in me so much more than I ever have. He encouraged me endlessly to do this thing I never felt worthy or capable of doing with any success. I do not care, though, about success in an author’s terms. The success is in completing another thing we had planned to do together. This first book won’t be my Christian fiction novel, although I hope to one day finish the other half of it, too, but this book was born of pain and healing, of loss and still living, of devastation clinging to hope. And it is filled with him.

Today is the 11th. This year has been like a marathon (and I 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 running) with those little tents throughout the race where you stop to drink or fuel up before continuing on. My stops weren’t fuel ups, though. They were days I had to get through. Instead of marking my progress by how many fueling stations I had passed (I don’t even really know what marathoners call them) my progress was marked from one day I made it through to another. Holidays, birthdays, probate dates, and tasks completed. The thing about this marathon, though, is that when I finally felt my chest hit the ribbon at the elusive finish line…it wasn’t the finish line at all. It was yet another starting line and I cannot leave until I finish. But when I finish this one, there’s still only another start again. Every marathon, every year that passes, flows into the next and the next with no end, like some ride that you cannot step off of because it never stops moving so, so fast. I’ve gotten through all of the “firsts.” Now I have to learn how live without just surviving each day. So starts a new year…and God will still be in the outcome.

Whatever Is True…

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Yesterday is hard to explain. If you’ve been following my grief journey then you know two things: 1.) I am a Christian and know God is here for all of it. 2.) I’m very real in my writing about when it doesn’t feel like He is but knowing He hasn’t left me here alone.

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. If I’m being honest, and I always am in my writing even when it sounds pitiful, I cried more and harder yesterday than I have since the first few weeks he was gone. More than at Thanksgiving or Christmas. More than birthdays. More than all of the everydays that have passed since he was here. Those days all belong to a lot of people. Even birthdays, many people celebrate birthdays with you. This day, it was all ours. It was the day that “til death do us part” was promised. In less than two months it will be one year since “til death do us part” became reality.

It is difficult having an anniversary without the one who created that special day with you through a shared covenant with God and each other. We should have been celebrating it together. My memories on Facebook showed posts both he and I had made over the years, declaring how thankful we were to have found each other, how in love we were, how we couldn’t wait to spend more years and years together. It was also filled with photos of prior anniversary activities. The memories yesterday, at least for this year, made me feel more bitter than sweet. I love that we made so many beautiful memories together but am angry and sad and feel cheated that there will be no more. I kept trying to remind myself to think of whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. I kept trying to praise and be grateful for the time we did have together. I kept trying, but it was hard to feel it. My mind fills with sorrow for what the rest of my life looks like without him. The loneliness. The lost laughter. The absence of arms wrapped around me when I’m sad, scared, frustrated, or happy, excited, and loved. I’ve made it through a lot of days without him so far, 316 as of yesterday to be exact.

316. My anniversary was 316 days after his forwarding address became Heaven. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

It was only this morning that I was pointed to this realization, the 316 days. God watched his son die, just as I had to watch my husband. After Jesus rose again, God took him to Heaven just as He did my husband. Because God willingly made that sacrifice, like I so unwillingly did with my husband, I will have the opportunity to see him again one day and also to spend the rest of my eternity in the presence of Jesus.

I’ll still always, always wish we had longer here together, in this life. I’ll spend the rest of my life not knowing why it ended so soon and in this way. But I’m trying again, today, to be grateful that it is not over. “Til death do us part” only means in this world, not the next. And, for me, my marriage didn’t end at death. People call me a widow but I am married. My husband is just on an extended remote assignment and currently has no way of communicating with family, just like when he was in the deserts of Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. This time, though, he won’t be the one coming home…we will.

Rod & Staff

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Grief is a UFC championship level scuffle except there are not only two contenders; anger, despair, thankfulness, pain, grace, loss, panic, praise, fear, disbelief, worship, and longing are only a handful of the emotions fighting to be the one on top, the one you can’t shake.

When loss happens and you’re knocked off your feet, life still keeps going on, unbidden, around you. You still get sick. So do your kids. You still have mishaps that cause the need for home repairs. You still get flat tires. If you’re in Florida, hurricanes still come and go. Nothing just stops while you feel like your heart has. You don’t get to just grieve “in peace” because the world just keeps turning and everyone else goes along with it. One thing I have learned in this process is that grief feels like unmitigated emotional chaos.

In a maypole dance, the pole stands still at the middle but children holding ribbons dance around it, over and under, which leaves the pole completely wrapped in ribbons. Braided ones that you can’t just let go of and have them fall off; nope, they have to be untangled. This is how it feels when you’re just standing still trying to catch your breath, but the emotions and the daily occurrences of “normal” life are still swirling around you, over, under, and around. It all gets tangled up and twisted around until just the normalcy in itself makes it hard to breathe. HOW can the world be normal without that person here who was so very much a part of what your world IS…was…

And so a daily (and sometimes nightly,) battle ensues. The battle to try to keep the positive things on top and wrestling the negative ones to the bottom, underneath…but underneath means they’re still there – maybe even closer to the core than they were before.

Since January, for reasons I cannot even identify, my core has been strangled by emotions that I have great difficulty controlling. I’m doing the things that I know to do: taking medicine for major depressive disorder (not my first tangle with this beast,) staying in the Word daily, trying to stay busy on the days I can force the energy to do that, taking vitamins, trying to eat food that is nutritious (sometimes) and drinking water, journaling to get the thoughts in my head to the outside so I can sort them. Nothing is making the scales tip in my favor lately, however.

It. Just. Hurts.

I’m not a stranger to pain. I’ve had kidney stones several times. I have given birth to three children. Each of those children has been hospitalized at one time or another – actually, each has been more than once. Each of these things has a time when the pain will cease. You pass the stone (and/or have surgery to be able to pass it.) The baby is born and the contractions stop. Each of my children, thankfully and by the grace of God, have come back home with me from various hospitalizations. But this…this has no end date as long as I am on this earth. When people say “Honey, you’ll be alright; this too shall pass” I want to say “Yeah…like a kidney stone.” It will never go away. It hurts as it passes and there are more up in the renal pelvis just waiting to get stuck. Last count I had five on one side and four on the other. So there is really no end; there is just wondering when the next attack will begin.

I’ve lost people I loved and cared very much about before. It sucks. I have a pretty good vocabulary but any way you shake it, that phrase just feels right. It just sucks. And yet even still, this is different. The cut is so deep that sutures won’t fix it; it has to be left open to heal from the inside out. And being open leaves it accessible and vulnerable to every single organism. In the case of grief, the visceral pain leaves you open to spiritual attacks on every side.

I don’t war against God. I war with Him. Even when I already feel defeated, I’ll be on the winning side of this one day. In the meantime, He’s got a plan for what He wants to do with me during the rest of the time I’m here. It’s my job to figure that out. Even while I’m sick. Even in the middle of a hurricane. Even with a flat tire. I have to figure it out. No pressure.

My purpose right now is my granddaughter and doing what I can to help and keep “raising” my already grown up kids. Turns out they do still need their mama after they turn 18. (Don’t tell them that when they’re 16 or you’re going to get a fight.)

I guess it’s not that I don’t have a purpose. It’s that God promises to give beauty for ashes. I think it’s that this tragedy needs a purpose. I did not find solace in the purpose of trying to make it right for other people who would tread the same path my husband trod in the hospital system. Giant corporations are going to keep doing things the way they do them because the laws are written to protect them and because they have enough money to fight against having to change the way they do things just because it’s the right thing to do for the people they are supposed to serve. The way they do things saves money and they have zero reasons to stop doing that when our laws don’t hold them appropriately accountable. That is what it is. Period.

So what purpose can come from him being gone? Nothing is ever going to make this right. It cannot be “fixed.” That is what I’m waiting for God to tell me. Please, take the ashes and show me the beautiful part.

My granddaughter is beautiful. The ashes are that her PopPop doesn’t get to see her grow up. My children are amazing. The ashes are that they don’t have the benefit of his example and his help learning things anymore. My home is beautiful. The ashes are that we bought it together and now I own it alone. There has to be more than ashes in all of this. Of all of these ashes, something good must be made by shaping them into some kind of art. Some mosaic of the broken pieces of our lives.

Since January I have been tossed in waves of despair and feelings of desolation. I survived the holidays! That alone should have been cause for some feeling of accomplishment but instead the road began a downward spiral on an escarpment of epic, steep curves and I cannot seem to stop the trajectory right now.

What I do now is know that God is riding it out with me and will catch me before I hit the bottom. He’ll either lift me back to the top or He will walk back up the steep path, carrying me when necessary. What I do know is that, although in so many ways I feel alone, I am not alone at all. His rod and His staff, they comfort me. His rod wards off enemy predators when I feel them approaching. His staff guides my direction. As long as I don’t wander away from Him, He can reach me with those. That’s what shepherds do; stay close and tend the sheep.

I don’t know how long I will remain in the valley I am wandering through. I do know that I don’t do it alone.

The NFL of Marriage

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It’s the 10th again. Each one that comes adds one more month since he went to his new Heavenly home. This time it’s ten months. Our wedding anniversary is in eleven days. I feel like that may be the hardest day yet.

I’m sure a lot of people pick special dates for when they get married. We kind of got married on the sly. 😏 Our families knew but for everyone else it was a “surprise” – sort of because we’d been engaged awhile. We got married at a beautiful park in Jacksonville on a beautiful, sunshiny day with the sweetest officiant who also offered to be our photographer afterwards. We purposefully chose 3/21, even though it was a Tuesday, because we said it was like 3-2-1 blastoff! Like we were finally getting to “officially” start our life together, even though we’d know we would be married a long time before that. We thought of all of the dreams and plans we had together and talked on the drive to Jacksonville specifically about putting a roof over both our side porch and back patio and adding rocking chairs so one day we could rock our grandbabies when we were old. Little did we know we’d have two coming long before we were “old.” And that Scott would only live to meet one of them.

I’ve said this before but losing a spouse is not just the loss of the person. Oh, that alone is big enough to make your life implode, but that’s not the whole hard part. It’s losing your future. It’s like playing football since you were five, planning your entire life from then on to be an NFL player and having the God-given talent and skill to be one of the greats, then sustaining a career-ending injury during one of your first big games as a pro. You didn’t make another plan. You didn’t choose a backup plan because this was the only one you’d ever wanted, ever dreamed of. And now it’s gone.

Except losing your spouse, your partner for everything life throws your way, is so much bigger.

We knew when we got married that we were pros. The NFL of marriage? That was us. We went through some really, really tough stuff together and we smashed it every time together. Neither of us had a doubt that this was forever. I’m sure that could be said of a lot of newlyweds but we’d both been married before and this time we had learned a lot about the work it takes to stay married through thick and thin. And we truly loved each other through each of our quirks, frustrations, mood swings, bad habits, and life lessons. We knew we were 100% married til death do us part.

And we were right about that much.

I may never be able to afford to put a roof over our patios but I’m working on doing what I can to make our home what we wanted together. We used to go outside to our back patio and drink coffee together in the mornings. We’d sit in chairs by the patio table, looking out over our pool and our beautiful back yard area, listening to the church bells from down the street and trying to figure out which hymn they were playing that day.

And we’d plan fruit trees to plant so the grandkids could pick it and have healthy snacks. We’d plan other new plants around the pool to make it even more pretty out there, and plants like Jasmine and gardenia and plumeria that would make it smell beautiful, too. Little by little I will keep trying to bring the dreams we both had to fruition. Sometimes I feel selfish doing that, like, why should I have all of these things now when he can’t enjoy them with me. And then I remember where he is and that he would want me to at least have this until I can get there with him. And I think he’d smile knowing that our dreams are still important to me, the ones I’ll be able to figure out how to do.

I bought a hammock. Today I will put it outside. We laughed over wanting a hammock we could lay in together and over what could potentially happen if we both tried to lay in a hammock together. That was one of the times we laughed until we cried because the scenarios were pretty hilarious as we talked about them and pictured them in our minds. I’m going to get in that hammock today and lay there alone for a little while…assuming I can get in without of of those crazy scenarios occurring, and just think about what he would say if he came home and saw I had put it together for us to try out.

I still have all of our dreams and plans in my head. There were so many. Some may never occur. Some I wouldn’t want to do without him. Some I will do in honor of him. Any of them I complete helps me heal in some small way, so I’ll keep looking for ways to do that.

I can feel God’s peace over me today. I’m not crying as I type, as I often do. The memories, at least for today, are coming in gentle waves and not tsunami crashes. I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to dream with him. ♥️

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.

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.

Breathing With No Air

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July 19th, 2023

I don’t know how to adequately explain the immensity, the all-encompassing grip, the sustained continuity of grief.  When someone has never experienced a loss of this magnitude, they cannot understand the way that it trips you up hundreds and hundreds of times every day…even after what seems like a very long time to everyone else.  

The most seemingly ridiculous or innocuous things bring me to tears.  I’m not sleeping well again, (see my last post) so I know that has something to do with why I cannot seem to keep the tears behind my eyelids lately…at least part of it.  But despite valiant efforts to remain a statue of fortitude and strength, my efforts are struck down constantly by vague references that, for me, are enormous catapulted stones headed straight for my head.

This morning a friend who is a school teacher posted a meme that probably means something to school teachers but normally I would have just scrolled past.  It said “Today is the 200th day of 2023.”  That’s it.  Just those words.  (I’m guessing it’s a teacher thing because I know they usually make a big to-do about the 100th day of school.  I don’t know; I may be wrong – but not the point…I digress.)

Immediately, I was devastated – no conscious thought over what this post “means” (pretty self-explanatory, right?) or pondering this 200th day’s relation to any other day of the year to understand why one would post it.  The very first thing that popped into my head immediately was: “165 days left in the last year I saw him, the last year he was ever here.

You see, when you are grieving, nothing has to make sense.  In fact, I feel that many, many things do not make sense in my life right now.  I often think about situations like this one, or if you have read my post about my first trip to the grocery store after he died and the infamous pickle jar, and wonder why on earth that upset me so much.  Some to the point of literal panic attack.  These occurrences seem so insipid, so completely without meaning but, for me, the meaning feels like more than I can handle at that moment.

I was telling my daughter-in-love today that I have only watched television twice since my husband died.  We weren’t huge TV watchers but there were a handful of shows that we followed and always watched together in the evenings when he was home.  Even when he was away on contract work, sometimes on his day off or in the evening after he got home from work, we would FaceTime or use speakerphone while we each watched the show, trading typical banter that we would have if he’d been home.  It was just one of our things.  Now, a new season of a show just aired this past week that he and I had been waiting to be released.  I can’t watch it.  I can’t even bring myself to be interested in what had been happening in the previous season finale that made it seem as if it were taking forever for this next one to come out.  It just doesn’t even matter.  

One of the times I watched TV alone in the last couple of months was to watch the last two episodes of a series that I typically watched alone when he wasn’t home.  That went okay except that, when he was home and I watched it, he’d have humorous input on what was going on.  (I have a secret addiction to “Married at First Sight”: don’t tell anyone. I’ve seen every season.) He’d always say something like, “Is it just me or is she really being a drama queen?” Or “Oh, I know he didn’t just say that to her.  She should just get out now.”  I thought of him as I watched, but mostly with fond memories and kind of chuckling at who is is…who he was…

The second time that I watched TV, I thought, okay, I won’t watch anything I’ve ever seen with him.  I’ll watch some random older movie and I should be fine.  Except the movie had me full-on sobbing by the time it was over.  Let’s just say that the description Netflix provided did not accurately provide enough context to what the movie entailed.  (It was “The Choice”; and, in my defense, I did NOT see that it had been written by Nicholas Sparks before I watched it.)  Alrighty then…no more TV for me.  At least for awhile.

My overarching point here is that what makes me sad doesn’t (and doesn’t have to) make sense.  

I’ve had several people telling me lately that going back to work should be good for me because “it will help you get your mind off of things.”  Ladies and gentlemen:  I completely understand where you’re coming from and why this won’t make sense to you.  Before this tragedy in my own life, I feel sure I would have thought the same.  But, nothing takes my mind off of things.  Like, so far, nothing.  He was so much a part of every part of my everyday life that every moment screams the regret of my loss.  Am I capable of staying alive without him?  I am, even though I admit to moments and sometimes days when I’d rather just not.  But normally, in the way the world should be, he was part of everything I did.  Hear something funny?  Text him.  See our granddaughter do something new?  Sent him a pic.  Question about pool chemicals?  Him.  Aggravated that they dog chewed something up?  Him.  Proud of something one of the boys did?  Also him.  Just having a random, hormonal, funky, sad, off day?  Still him.  I was able to retire because of him and going back to work just reminds me that he didn’t want me to and that I didn’t have to when he was here.  And nothing else I have found so far ever “takes my mind off of it.”  Two of my favorite things are having my kids over for Saturday lunch and cheering on Lillian, our granddaughter, when she does a new “trick” (she’s almost seven months old now so she learns new things practically every day now.)  Although I’m glad that I have my children and Lillian to count on to do everything they can to cheer me up, neither of those things have brought the same joy since he’s been gone.  Kelly Clarkson sings a song that says “Since you’ve been gone, I can breathe for the first time…” Since he’s been gone, it feels as if I can’t.  All the time.  It’s been two and a half months and it still feels like I have to work to breathe.  In…out…in…out…like a respiratory metronome.  His absence is as all-encompassing as his presence always was for me.  I could have breathed him all day long, every day.  Jordin Sparks sings a song that says “Tell me how I’m s‘posed to breathe with no air, can’t live, can’t breathe with no air…” Yes, this one fits; if it’s hard for you to imagine, just YouTube this one:

Tell me how I’m s’posed to breathe with no air…

If I should die before I wake

It’s ‘cause you took my breath away.

Losing you is like livin’ in a world with no air.

I’m here alone, didn’t wanna leave

My heart won’t move it’s incomplete

Wish there was a way I could make you understand.

But how do you expect me

To live alone with just me?

‘Cause my world revolves around you

It’s so hard for me to breathe.

I walked, I ran, I jumped, I flew,

Right off the ground to float to you.

There’s no gravity to hold me down for real.

But somehow I’m still alive inside

You took my breath but I survived.

I don’t know how; I don’t even care.

Tell me how I’m s’posed to breathe with no air?

Can’t live can’t breathe with no air.

That’s how I feel whenever you’re not there.

There’s no air, no air.

Got me out here in the water so deep

Tell me how you’re gon’ be without me?

If you ain’t here, I just can’t breathe….

Psychosomatic

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July 18th, 2023

𝙋𝙨𝙮𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙘

Well, I’ve finally gone crazy.

(Okay, crazier than usual…)

It seems my brain has found a way to give my body physical symptoms.  Isn’t that fun? 😕

The word psychosomatic even sounds like it means you’ve gone nuts.  It has the word psycho in it, so there’s that.

I’ve developed something called neuropathic dermatitis.  Also known as neurodermatitis.  And dermatitis sounds like there would be a rash but there’s not; there is no physical, outward sign.  Basically, it means that nothing is actually wrong with my skin but my brain tells the nerves in my body “Listen, you’re not okay.”  My brain tries to say that to the rest of me some days, too. 

I start itching in the same couple of places every night, right at bedtime.  And I don’t mean a little annoying feeling where you can scratch or rub the area and it’s gone for awhile.  I mean 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘦 itching, like I have never experienced before, that makes you want to scratch so hard that you could rip your skin, and then scratching does 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 to alleviate the itch – it doesn’t even stop for a few seconds.  In fact, the worst and most common complication of this diagnosis is skin infection from where people do just that, injure themselves just because they can’t stop scratching it so hard.  It feels like you need to scratch 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩 your skin.

Yes, I know, if it itches, DON’T scratch it.  More histamines start dancing around in there and make it worse.  You’ll itch even more.  But you don’t understand this kind of itching.  Creams don’t help it.  Steroids don’t help it.  Oatmeal baths don’t help.  Warm or cool compresses don’t stop it (in fact getting warm makes it even worse somehow.) Antihistamines don’t help it.  

I can’t fall asleep until somewhere around 2:00 a.m. every night and wake up around 5:00-6:00 because I’m itching; apparently my brain is still working overtime in my sleep when I don’t even know I’m stressed.

The most common causative factor (often referred to as “trigger” these days) of this idiopathic disorder is…(drumroll, please…) S͛T͛R͛E͛S͛S͛.  Yep, you read that right.  Stress (also translated as grief in my scenario) has taken over.  It’s in control.  Clearly I am not.

Y’all, I really actually checked my bed for bedbugs (and I don’t GO anywhere to even be exposed to anything like that) because I couldn’t figure out what could be making me itch this badly.  

I’m not using new soaps, laundry detergent, lotions, etc.  There is no rash.  There are no bug bites.  If it’s not currently itching (and so I’m not scratching) then you can’t even see any indication that there is a problem.  But it literally feels like something is crawling around under my skin…hundreds of something’s.  It doesn’t spread anywhere, always the same two spots and always at night.  These are apparently two hallmark signs of this specific diagnosis.  It will occasionally itch a little (same spots) during the day and yesterday I was able to pin those episodes yesterday with times when I actually was more upset and stressed.  Fortunately those times aren’t as bad as at night, only mildly annoying.

WHY AM I TELLING YOU ALL OF THIS?

Because it is real and it was 100% caused by my grief journey.  They can say it is stress-related, yes, but every particle of stress I have right now is related to losing my husband.  I have only mentioned this to a couple of people because it makes me sound like I have either the plague or the creepy crawlies…or that I’m just plain nuts.  I am NOT contagious and there are NO bugs!  I can neither confirm or deny the rest.  I also know that I’ve required a lot of prayer from a lot of people lately and it probably gets old hearing about how screwed up my life is right now.  I haven’t wanted to say that there is “something else wrong with me,” plus it makes me sound like a lunatic and like it is “all in my head.”  I assure you, it’s not; if you could see those places on my skin at night or when I first wake up in the morning, you’d know that there’s more to it but that still doesn’t make it sound any less ridiculous even to me.

I’m getting very little sleep, am beginning to feel delirious at times, have even less control over my emotions (because I’m getting no sleep), and it is beginning to feel like more than I can handle…again.  I was just starting to feel, not “better,” not less sad or lonely or lost, but maybe just as if, well, if I’ve gotten this far then it’s not going to be fun and I’m still going to hate this life without him but it looks like I’m going to do it; I’m going to live through it.  Now…now it just feels like the task got even bigger.  If this is what Paul’s “thorn” was, in the Bible, I know now why he begged to have it removed from him; it would make perfect sense to me now, for it to have been this unexplainable thing that appears to have no reason to occur but, nevertheless, just IS.  (I know a lot of experts believe it was epilepsy but I’m just saying this would have been bad, too.) 

Isn’t it funny how, when you’re grieving, you feel like telling other people how you feel is too burdensome?  Like, if you keep telling them how awful you feel, it’ll just be too much for them and they will avoid being around you?  Heck, I’d avoid being around me right now, if I could, probably.  If you’re someone who is grieving and are having more physical symptoms of that condition than you would care to explain, just know that it is real and that our minds can only take so much before it tries to find a way to protect us.  Unfortunately for me, this particular coping mechanism may take my mind off of grieving temporarily as I claw at my own skin, but not in an effective way; only in a way that feels even worse than it does at all the other times.  And maybe for you it’s not being able to sleep due to insomnia (I had that for the first few weeks), maybe it’s not being able to eat, no matter how much you know you need to (I lost about 12 pounds in the first two weeks and then have continued steadily, albeit less quickly, since then.  Maybe it’s nausea or diarrhea (yep, been there, too).  Or maybe it’s something I haven’t experienced but it’s making you feel like you’re going insane.  Well, insanity is relative, I suppose.  I certainly feel that way sometimes now because I don’t recognize who I am a lot of the time.  The day I went from a “we” to just me…I lost a piece of myself and it feels like it equates to having an essential part amputated.  Like learning to walk again after losing a leg while still having terrible, excruciating phantom pains because your brain often tells your body that the leg is still there when you can look and clearly see that it’s not.  But it hurts anyway.  That change of identity makes you feel a little “crazy” for awhile.  I mean, how is it possible for me to not know who I am?  Still, it feels as if I don’t because I’m so different now.

So, for now, I learn to live with a new thorn and just keep praying daily that it will be removed.  Life was feeling hard enough, impossible really, before this problem came along so I could certainly use a break.  I do know that, even in the roughest nights of the storm, God is still here.  He still holds me in the palm of His hand.  For today, knowing that is enough.  So I just keep swimming…

Organ Donation

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July 17th, 2023

I’m trying my best not to get down in the dumps today.  Trying being the operative word.  

This came in the mail today.

One day you have a husband, a soulmate…

Two months later, you have a certificate of appreciation and a little box.

Long before I lost my husband, I knew he wanted to be an organ and tissue donor.  We had talked about it at length and we both had already registered as such before we ever met.  I knew that, one day, if he ever left this world before me, this is what he wanted.  

He wanted to do the same thing he spent his life doing when he was here, as a veteran and a nurse: he wanted to help people.

Because of the sudden nature of his passing, organs weren’t an option for donation.  But other parts, tissue, corneas, cardiac valves (which are considered tissue, not organs, even though they are part of the heart, and even bone could be harvested in order to provide someone who is still here with a better quality of life.

I know he would be proud of all of the people he was able to help.  We don’t know how many people that is yet, but they told us that around the end of this year we will get a letter telling us what they were able to give to someone; we’ll know how many people Scott helped in death.  The number of people he helped in life is innumerable.

I should be feeling happy, some kind of pride, for the fact that his wishes were upheld and that this would make him happy.  I should be feeling so glad that other people are benefitting from something that he no longer needed.  I know I should…

But I don’t.  I can never tell when the anger is going to pop up, when it will rear it’s ugly head, let out a loud, throaty battle roar, and come charging at me to hijack my day.  Anger, sadness, depression, devastation… none of those guys fight fair and they’re never going to give you a head’s up before they attack.  I suppose that would be counterintuitive to their intent to lay you out like a boxer, knocked out cold in the ring.

I wish it would knock me out, though.  Beats the chaotic turmoil that screams in my belly right now, the cacophony of all of the not-fun emotions trying to take center stage.  Sometimes I think it feels like dying…but it doesn’t.  It feels like living…

I’ve been on a “good” streak the last few days so this attack came quite out of the blue.  I realized I hadn’t checked the mail box since some day last week.  There are a lot of things around here that should be done but aren’t.  I’m getting a better handle on it sometimes but others just feel like, “Ahhhh, why bother?  What’s the point?”

When I opened the mailbox (which I’m glad I checked because there may not have been much room for mail today, oops) this little box and a separate, large envelope were inside and the matching return address on both of them was a beacon, shouting to me that I was entering the danger zone, a lighthouse warning brightly:  Jagged rocks ahead!

Scott had already shed his earthly body before I agreed to let them take him away to the donor center.  He didn’t need that stuff anymore.  It was of absolutely no use to him whatsoever because he already had a new “body” of some sort.  He already had the eternal kind.  

But I miss the one he had here so much.  I miss his “voice box” and how he had a high pitched laugh when he got really tickled about something.  I miss his amber eyes that could be brown or almost golden at times, even though they were also always red, much to his dismay, because of allergies.  I miss holding his hand.  I miss his bald head.  I miss hearing his heartbeat when I would lay my head on his chest, the sound that he always said belonged to me because he would never, ever give it to anyone else.  I miss…just him.  I miss him.

And so I do not regret the decision to help others with his gift.  I just regret what made it happen now.  I regret that it was so soon.  I regret that our plans, dreams, adventures, and hopes were dashed in an instant…in an unexpected instant.  Somehow, even now, I just don’t know what to do with all of that.

I don’t cry as much now usually.  It’s almost like your body becomes conditioned to what the day-to-day heaviness, sadness, loss feels like and it just doesn’t respond the way it used to anymore; the tears just won’t even come most times.  In the beginning, I cried so much that it felt like if I blinked to hard, plop…there would go my exceedingly dry eyeball rolling across the floor because it just got inadvertently squeezed out by the normal movement of my eyelid.  Now, though, it is a blessing and a curse to have adapted to this “conditioning,” I suppose.  I’m not as likely to embarrass myself in the middle of the pickle aisle, but it also means that a lot of stuff just seems to live inside of me, instead of escaping to the outside.  I’ve apparently just grown accustomed to feeling this way…sort of.

I’ve been staying busy writing.  My novel has had me tied up for a little while now and I’m 1/3 of the way finished already.  I think that knowing Scott really wanted me to do this, that he felt strongly about the fact that it was something I should do, that it was a calling for me…that seems to have punched the time card on my purpose meter.  I was able to suddenly write a full outline and know exactly which direction it will go when I’ve been trying to figure out where to start, what the plot was, where to create drama, etc., for literally years now.  And so writing is what I do all day when the kids are at work.  I’ve had some “good” days; I use quotation marks because good is relative.  Good for me now would have been complete misery in The Before.  Funny how your perspective changes.

Writing helps me process emotions and, now that I’ve blogged all about how much it sucked rocks to open these, knowing that they are just another symbol of the brutal finality of it all, I’m getting back on a relatively even keel and will return to my authoring tasks. 

Rejoicing for Joy…even if you don’t feel happy

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July 16th, 2023

“Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!”  Philippians 4:4

There are times in life, and especially in a grief journey, when it feels difficult, if not impossible, to rejoice.  The word rejoice gives the inherent impression that one should be filled with happiness, the mental image showing someone jumping for joy, a new graduate as they hurl their mortarboard cap into the air in an exuberant fashion with a smile radiating a glow of happiness on their face.  That’s what rejoicing is, right?  

So how on Earth do we do that when we are downcast and feel destroyed?  How is it possible to radiate joy when we are miserable and lost and sad and feel alone?  “At all times, God?  Surely you didn’t mean that literally…because I definitely don’t feel happy right now…”

I’ve researched the difference between joy and happiness before and I took the time today, after reading this verse for probably the millionth time in my life, to locate a few definitions of joy as defined on the internet, with a particular focus on Christian pages.

“Happiness is something we feel because of our situation or circumstances.  We are happy because something has made us happy, but we are joyful because of something within us.”

“Joy is a practice and a behavior.  It is deliberate and intentional.  Happiness comes and goes blithely on its way.”

“Happiness is in the mind and feelings.  Joy, on the other hand, is deep in the heart, the spirit, the center of the self.”

“Joy is something grander than happiness.  Joy is a fruit of the spirit, and when we find joy it is infused with comfort and wrapped in peace.  It is an attitude of the heart and spirit.”

“Joy is caused by elation at a moment in time.  Happiness may dwell on materialistic, worldly pleasure while joy is derived from soul satisfying, emotional well-being.”

And then, even a secular page:  “Joy is a deep feeling of contentment.  It is cultivated over a lifetime and can even be borne from suffering.  Happiness is more about getting what you want in the moment – it is fleeting.”

1 Peter 1:8-9 says this:  “Though you have not seen him, you love him.  Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Peter was talking about something profound but that we already know, deep in our hearts.  Though we cannot see the air, we believe that it is there because we feel it as we inhale and breathe it in.  You may have friends who live across the continent, or even on another continent.  Even if you cannot see them, you still enjoy the beauty of that friendship.  You still know that, if you call that friend at any time you needed them, they would answer the phone or come to you in order to help.  You may find yourself laughing about something they said once while you are all alone, or even laughing at what you imagine they would say in a certain situation.  As Christians, we cannot physically see God with our eyes but are able to view the evidence of Him all around us, so we know He is there even when we can’t see or feel him, just like that faraway friend.  And also, as Christians, we know where our loved ones who trusted in Jesus go whenever they leave this world.  We cannot see them, we cannot tangibly feel them, but we know their spirit still exists, apart from their flesh and bone body, in Heaven.

I’m not happy that my husband is no longer here.  I find it very challenging to find happiness in any of my circumstances these days.  But I can say that I have joy.  Joy is not circumstantial.  It is a state of being.  

Even Dictionary.com says that the definition for joy is “to feel joy, a festive gaiety; to be glad; to rejoice; a source or cause of keen pleasure or delight; something or someone greatly valued or appreciated.”  How is it that even the dictionary, not religiously focused in any way, speaks scripture over this word?

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 34:4

“…and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart…” Jeremiah 15:16

“For then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God.” Job 22:26

“You will make known to me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy.  In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”

“Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing.” Psalm 100:2

And my personal favorite: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.  He will rejoice over you with gladness.  He will quiet you by His love.  He will exult over you with loud singing.”  Zephaniah 3:17

There is so much to unpack in these verses regarding the meaning of joy as opposed to happiness.  “Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.”  God’s word imposes joy within us.  “Delight in the Almighty and lift your face to God” is an action that will plant seeds of joy in our hearts.  “In Your presence is fullness of joy.” Well, that one is self-explanatory.  “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful singing:” says that serving God with gladness (a joyful spirit) and singing to Him brings joy.  I repeat, joy is a state of being; it is not a feeling.

There have been days when I did not feel like going to work.  Nights when it was all I could do to drive to the hospital and clock in for a shift.  Even in those times, however, when I did not feel happy about being there and was probably exhausted, I did not go about my work with a sour disposition.  I smiled warmly at my patients.  I conversed with my coworkers with a friendly tone.  I spoke to supervisors and administrators with an attitude that belied my current temperament.  Most people do this and we call it professionalism.  It is unprofessional to speak to a customer, patient, client, or coworker in a grumpy or disrespectful manner just because we woke up on the wrong side of the bed, or because we are dealing with circumstances in our private life that should not cross over into work relationships.

I may go to see a friend but feel like they are mad at me or suddenly don’t like me anymore.  They may have had a fight with their teenager right before I arrived and are still stewing on that, unintentionally extending that attitude toward me.  I think I’ve done something wrong and don’t know how to fix what I don’t know but it turns out that it’s not really even about me at all.  It just made me feel that way.  Feelings aren’t fact.  

The source of joy is in being able to do the same with God, in a manner of speaking.  That doesn’t mean that you have to “fake it til you make it” with God, even though I confess that it feels that way sometimes.  Remember, “feelings” are not always reality.  I may be presented with the same scenario on two different days and feel very different about them.  A couple who are in college and learn that they are soon to be parents may have very different feelings about the situation than they will when they have their second child five years later after planning to conceive again.  Our emotions are fickle.  But reality is not.  God is not.   

Don’t get me wrong, feelings are valid and we all have a right to experience them; in fact, we often cannot help experiencing them.  My journey through grief sometimes feels like a journey in grief and I certainly cannot change the way I feel on a certain day, but that doesn’t mean that I do not still have joy living inside me, waiting to find an opportunity to be expressed.

We have to find a way, at least be reaching for a way, to be joyful over God, over the beautiful opportunity we have to have a relationship with him, over the sacrifice he suffered to give us the ultimate desires of our heart, to be with Him in paradise one fine day, even when we don’t feel like it.  Sometimes that feels like a major undertaking of mass proportion.  Other times it comes naturally.

There are mornings when I wake up and jump right into the Word, eager to see what God has for me that day.  There are also days when I wake up and the last thing I feel like doing is to try read the Bible or a devotional or even listen to praise music.  I don’t feel like praising because it feels like praising my situation.  It feels like praising for this feeling that won’t leave my gut.  It feels like I’m going against every miserable bone in my body to do something that I don’t want to do.  But if I can do it in order to go to work, if I can change how I am postured to do it for other people, can’t I do that for God?

When I’m praising in the middle of a storm, I have to remind myself (sometimes over and over) that I’m not expressing being glad about what has happened.  I’m glad for the knowledge that God already knows the outcome and I trust Him with that.  I trust that He can and will, in His timing, turn these ashes into something beautiful.  Scott would have wanted that.  That doesn’t mean that it is always easy to do.  In the contrary, some days it is really, really hard!  But for the sacrifice He gave for me and trusting in the promises that He has made, I can do it.  I can live through grief.  I can give God glory in dark times.  I can still have joy within me when I do not have happiness pouring out.  I can do hard things.  I’m doing it.  I’m doing it because God can still be joyful over me even when I am at my worst.