New Words..... Familiar Love... Perfect

Early this morning, before the sun came up, I was jolted awake with a painfully not-so-kind reminder that I am in the trenches of a celiac relapse due to gluten exposure that happened a week ago. Simply put: a relapse means titanic pain (especially after eating, once the food begins passing through the small intestine), eventual fatigue, lots of laying down, and unpleasant digestive outbursts of every kind. 

I spent much of those early hours between our tiny bathroom and living room floor. (Thankful for both!)

Our 5th wheel is divided into basically two studio apartments. One upstairs, and one downstairs. The kitchen and bathroom areas are shared. This gives our daughter the privacy she needs, and works great for the circumstance we find ourselves in. Super grateful. 

BUT... When I'm dealing with a physical trial of this magnitude... Well, there really is no privacy. Not completely any way. And certainly not for my sweet husband. 

NEWSFLASH: It isn't easy AT ALL being married to someone with multiple chronic health issues. Nope. Not one bit. 

So, as Rick was getting some much deserved sleep on the sofa with one of the pups, I cuddled up to the heater and our other pup who was looking much like a scoop of cafeteria mashed potatoes plopped into his dog bed. 

As I was sitting there, waiting for the next abdominal prompt to head to the restroom.... I looked down and noticed all my dress shoes nestled carefully near the heater. At the same moment I heard Rick's soft breathing from behind me on the couch. 

And then I rememebered how he had taken my shoes that had been stored in a cubby that started to have a mildew issue and sterilized them outside. He then brought them in to completely dry by the heater. 

Outside in the cold, wet, windy weather.

 

My dress shoes that I rarely ever wear because my left foot and ankle were forever changed in my car accident 4 years ago. 

And he was already tired when we discovered the mildew issue last evening. 

Inside my head, my life has a sound track. Much like a movie. But I don't have any say, really, about which songs play at any given moment. 

The song that came this morning as I pondered the sacrifical love of my man was.... 'So This Is Love', from Disney's original Cinderella film. Soft and sweet, it floated through my soul like a feather on a summer breeze.  

The reminder gently shook loose other recent memories of this man and his reflection-of-Jesus love for me...

Endless bowls of soft foods this last week, (read OATMEAL). Walking at a much slower pace in the grocery store, then having to wait patiently while I stop to get a picture of the sweetest, teensy, hot pink flower. Rolling down his window so I can get a good shot of a view I love with all my heart, so I don't have to stand out in the windy cold weather.

The list could go on and on, but these were the beauties that came to warm my heart and comfort my mind in that moment on the rug this morning. 

The last 4 years have been some of the most incomprehensibly hard I could ever have imagined. 

I thought I would never really write again, paint again, play again.....

But so often in life, if something that is broken is given what it needs to heal... It heals so much STRONGER. 

I'm here to say that we are living it. Even in... No, ESPECIALLY in these most difficult times. 

Thank you JESUS for this gift I have in a man named Rick Spears. 

For reminding me, in the sweetest of ways, of all the strong healing You have done and will do. 

So this is love.... Mm mm Mmm Mm.... So this IS Love....... 💗

(He held all the dogs while I took that one too.) 💗🐾

Compared to What?

I received some news today that carried with it a certain amount of stress.

The news wasn't altogether shocking, but it was unwelcome for sure.

I heard the words, took a deep breath, and then began to pray and feel the myriad of emotions that come at stressful times, all at once.

It wasn't pretty.

My body doesn't seem to know what to do with stress. My head tries to give instructions, my heart believes all the right stuff, but my body.... well, it just doesn't listen.

And life? It just keeps going.

House cleaning, dog feeding, football practice chauffeuring, teenage parenting, they all still demand the same amount of attention.

Don't they know that my world just changed and my body's freaking out??

I found myself in a local grocery store a bit dizzy.

Not fun.

My husband and I had been in communication all day, texting some... talking some... and we decided to go to our parents for prayer and discussion, (always a good idea in our case), praying with them helped and I left a bit lighter than when I arrived.

But it didn't last long. Am I human or what?

I climbed back on that roller coaster of  emotions and began to feel pretty ill again. I asked to drive down some scenic roads instead of the usual ways home, so we did. No relief. I bought some coconut chocolate ice cream. No relief. I tried to think about the positive aspects of this news. No relief. I talked about how I was feeling with my husband. No relief.

I was miserable.

I felt mislead. Disappointed. Lied to in a way. I felt angry and sad and ridiculous for feeling all this stuff.

At home I gravitated toward normal comforts... prayer, pups, comfy couch. I chatted with a few trusted gals online.... and kept praying.

Then I asked the Lord for a new perspective....

...AND BOOM.

He changed it alrighty.

I had opened a tab that held links to all kinds of  good stuff on another blog I frequent, but I had never returned to look at the links... much less click on them and really take them in.

The Lord immediately drew my attention to one link and it was as if he moved the mouse over the link and clicked it for me. As the page opened I saw two people in hospital chairs hooked up to IV's. I recognized the body types... Cancer.

The photo journal that followed was pictures of the author's parents who had been both diagnosed at the same time with stage 4 cancer. He with pancreatic, she with breast cancer.... again.

I held my breath.

This has been a week of breathless moments for sure.... watching my middle son who not so long ago had five and a half hour cardiac surgery walk onto the field for his first high school football practice in our town... reading the news of a fellow home school mama of four precious little children whose 31 year old daddy and sole provider was killed by a hit and run driver... hearing our news that changes our world some... and then this.

These beautiful people married 34 years facing the meth-infused demon called Stage Four Cancer.

The photos were not incredibly recent, the husband had lost his battle with pancreatic cancer, but they are incredibly perspective altering.

I can't really help the way my damaged auto-immune disease ridden body reacts to stress, but I can choose how I filter it. What my attitude will be. Where I turn for wisdom and support. Who I trust. I have choices about how I handle the things that I didn't choose. The things I focus on and the way I react are mine to claim.

I looked at one of the photos and soaked in the smile of the wife as the husband did a funky dance move to get her to grin.... Her resolute and regal expression as she was being fitted for a new wig... Taking turns driving to treatments while the other slept in the back seat...

But the one that really got me, even beyond the photo of her mastectomy scar, was the one of their embrace. She so bald and thin, he bearing scars from countless treatments.... holding each other come what may. I'm not sure what the mood was, or the moment that spurred the photographer to capture it... but it caught me. I gazed at it a long while appreciating their willingness to share the heartbreaking intimacy of such commitment and compassion in the face of such a relentless enemy.

My shoulders softened. My breathing slowed. The permanent wrinkle between my eyebrows got a little less etched.... and I looked again at our news...

It's hard news for us sure, but COMPARED TO WHAT?

I asked and I received.

Maybe you did too.


See the photo journal here>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/17/cancer-family_n_4455720.html


Help the mom with her 4 sweet kids here (her husband did really just die yesterday) >>> http://www.gofundme.com/dbo2mw


Proverbs 3:5-6
James 1:27

Jesus be all you need and so much more.....