Attack of the “Yucks”!

Today is one of those days…I’m getting that knot in my stomach…that elephant on my chest.  I’ve been divorced almost a year and I have not had many encounters with my ex-husband…which is a huge blessing.  Everytime I see or talk to him, it stirs up all the old “yuck”.  The memories…the doubts….the shame….the guilt.   

I will see my ex-husband tonight because he is coming to get the kids to take them out for a little bit. I will get the “yucks”.  But I will let God’s words comfort me and strengthen me.

So I take a deep breath…remember that I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14) …remember that God is greater than my heart when it tries to condemn me and He knows everything (1 John 3:20)  I will tell Satan to back off and stop telling lies to my heart.  Satan is so good at that though.   He’s been at it a long time…he lied to Eve in the garden (you won’t REALLY die)…he told lies about Job (if you took away all he had he would surely curse you)…he even told a lie to Jesus (worship me and all this will be yours).  He lies to me now…but God is greater.  He who is with us is greater than he that is in the world.(1 John 4:4) 

Thanks for reading this (if anyone does) but I’m really writing this to myself, so I can come back later tonight and read it over and over again.  Maybe it will sink in!

*****

Thanks to a good friend for creating diversions for me; getting me thru without too much “yuck”.  Thank you L

He heard my cry

(I apologize for this one being so long…I tried to shorten it, but it just wouldn’t obey!!) 

Awhile back, when my daughter was about 4 years old..she had pnuemonia that just would not respond to medicine or treatments.  She would get it, we would treat it..but it kept coming back.  And it just kept getting worse and worse.    She was getting weaker…so weak in fact that she didn’t have the strength to walk, much less sit up.  She couldn’t eat even if she had been able to summon an appetite.  Our pediatrician was out of town and another doctor had advised us to ride out the fever (she thought it was the flu) I could not sit there and watch my daughter suffer so much so I went ahead and took her to our pediatrician the next day when he got back into his office.  He immediately sent us for a chest xray.  I knew that my daughter was very sick, but the look on the face of the xray technician told me it was much much worse than I thought.  After the xray doctor looked at the film, we were told to go immediately to the children’s hospital.  Our peditrician came to us. (He is one of the most tender, caring, knowledgeable people I have had the pleasure to know.)   He asked me to sit down…it’s never good news when a doctor asks you to sit down.  My daughter’s right lung was almost completely filled with fluid.  We were going to Intensive Care.

They put two tubes in her chest to start to try to drain the fluid.  IV’s, chest xrays, CT Scans, procedure after procedure, more and more needles!! After a few days of this…we were not making much progress for my tiny, little frail daughter.  She was such a trooper though.  She would tell the nurses how to reconnect all her monitors…even doing it herself sometimes. She charmed everyone that came in contact with her.  Even one doctor who never did anything like this (or so we were told by the nurses) brought her a beanie baby!! A nurse brought her a Doctor Barbie!!

 I think it was about our fifth day in PICU when the doctors (we had quite a team of them by this point) came in to tell me that there was a pocket of fluid that was just not going away.  I had to make a decision.  We could sit there in PICU for a few more days, hoping the antibiotics, breathing treatments, and tubes would finally take care of that spot….or they could do surgery and go in and get it.  Wow.  Let my little girl suffer longer, knowing that if the treatments didn’t work we would still be facing the surgery option.  Or go ahead and agree to let them put my angel under anesthesia and endure all the gruesomeness that surgery involves. 

I was married at the time, but my husband was not involved. (that is a whole different post for another day)  I was on my own with this situation and decision.  My parents were very good to be there and help me with the logistics of taking care of two other children that were at home and having someone by my daughter’s bedside 24/7.  But the decision about surgery was mine alone.  I couldn’t even breathe from the weight of that burden! What if I did the wrong thing? What if the choice I made ended up making her situation worse? What if, God forbid, she were to die because of the choice I made??

I lay awake by her bedside all that night.  Sitting there watching the heart monitor, the declining blood oxygen level,  I started praying.  At this point in my life, I wasn’t going to church and had been away for a long time.  I did not really expect God to listen to me.  I was so dirty, so full of shame.  I had done way too much “wrong” for Jesus to want to help me I thought.  I prayed for one thing over and over that night.  God please give me peace with one of the choices so that I will know what to do. God help me please. 

Morning came and I had to tell the doctors which way to go.  I took a deep breath and said “Let’s go get it.”  So she was prepped for surgery and off we went.  To make this long story just a little bit shorter…turns out that part of her lung was dead.  It was never going to drain out or go away.  They HAD to do surgery to remove that dead part. The surgery had been the right choice.  Waiting would have only made her much worse! Thank you Lord! Thank you Lord! Thank you Lord!

She recovered and the only visible trace of the 14 days we spent in PICU is the 5 inch scar high on  her right side.  The surgeon took great care in “fixing” her back up and the scar is not nearly as bad as it could have been.  She is missing a fist-sized piece of her lung, but it does not slow her down a bit!

But the reason I tell you what turned out to be this very long story is this:  this turned out to be a pivotal point in my life in lots of ways.  I re-evaluated my marriage.  And I re-evaluated my relationship with God. It was a few years down the road that I ended up “coming home” and shortly after that.. my marriage finally ended.  But I was very humbled that God had listened to me…even when I felt like I was not honoring Him with my life.  I believe it was one of the primary things that started me thinking about getting back to the life I had intended, and God had intended, me to have. 

I think David had some of the same sort of feelings that I was having at that time.  He had definitely done some things that had not honored God and he felt ashamed and dirty.  In Psalms 22:6 he says “But I am a worm, and not a man”.  He says in Psalms 31:9-10, “Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;  my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.  My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.”  He was suffering! Then in verses 21-22 when God has come to his rescue, he says: “Praise be to the LORD, for he showed his wonderful love to me when I was in a besieged city.  In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from your sight!”  Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.”  The Psalms are filled with David’s longing for God to forgive his sin and rescue him.  I can relate….big time.    

Straight Paths

Today, I am remembering a verse that helped me so much about a year ago.  When I was struggling with what I needed to do in my marriage, in my life, for my kids…I read this verse and it stuck in my heart.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6, NAS)

I was so unsure, so torn about what to do.  There were so many things to consider, so many things that I could fix or make worse depending on what choice I made.  This verse comforted and empowered me.  Trust the Lord. Acknowledge Him. He will lead you.  

God showed me so many times during the course of those days, that if I trusted Him, He would smooth out the road, work out the knots, “make my paths straight”.   Doors of opportunity opened, conversations were started by others that I was very hesitant to start myself, people took actions that clearly showed me their intentions and made the decision process much much easier! God took care of me.  I turned it over to Him.  I think I was in a continual state of prayer during some of those days.  My heart was crying for God and longing for His power and comfort.  God heard my cries and came down to lead me.  God is good.

If you can, tell me about a verse that stuck in your heart during troubling times and share how God’s gift of the Word helped you get through.

And the Lord turned….

One night I was reading in Luke 22 about Peter’s denial of Jesus, and the phrase “and the Lord turned and looked at Peter” hit me hard. I started crying. (and I know..that’s not unusual) But no wonder Peter wept bitterly!! He had just disappointed his friend, his Lord, the Son of God! My nature is to avoid eye contact…actually ALL contact…with someone I have disappointed.  I think that is the case for all of us.  We are embarrassed, ashamed, guilty…we want to hide…like Adam and Eve tried to hide from God in the garden…sometimes we just wish we could die to end the humiliation.

I try to imagine the look on Jesus’ face.  I don’t think it was an “I-told-you-so” look (even though He had every right to say that to Peter).  I don’t believe it was an angry scowl (even though He had every right to be angry)  I don’t even really think He had a disappointed or hurt look on His face.  Maybe.  But judging by the second-chance way Jesus spoke with Peter when they took a walk on the beach after His resurrection, I imagine Jesus’ look said, “I know. I forgive you.  I still love you. It’s why I’m here”.   

What if that was the last thing Peter ever did? What if he felt like he had disappointed Jesus and could never do anything to fix that so he just quit? Don’t you know Peter was so glad to get that second-chance to make things right? And boy did he ever get out there and show others how to pick it up and keep going! (read 2 Peter some time)

I have disappointed people in all kinds of ways in my life…with my actions, with my inactions, with my choices.  I have been given a second-chance to fix things with some of them (and what a gift to my heart when I am forgiven and accepted!)  I need to make the effort to make things right with some others. But the best second-chance I received was with Jesus. I don’t deserve it.  I deserve to die for the things I did.  Jesus forgives and forgets and accepts me with no hesitation. The reality of Jesus giving me His grace (time and time again) is a gift beyond measure!! 

Memorial Stones

I was reading in Joshua a few days back.  About the time they took the twelve stones from the temporarily-parted Jordan river and set them up as a memorial.  Not so the stones could be worshipped or revered in anyway.  But to remember.  To remember how God had delivered them to the land that He promised.  So they would remember to tell their children how good God had been to them. 

What do you have in your life that reminds you of God’s power and goodness? And there are a ton of easy answers…I don’t want those.  I have a ton of easy answers:  The splendor of the Rocky Mountains, the magnificence of a sunset (that God paints just for me), the beauty of a full moon, the miracle of life in the birth of my children, the existence of a rainbow.  I want to know the thing that is personally a reminder to you.

Let me tell you about mine.  I have to give a little background for it to make sense, but I’ll try not to go into excruciatingly boring detail.  I had been married for 17 years to a man I had no business even knowing much less being married to.  The differences between us were staggering and it had almost sucked the life completely out of me.  A variety of things led to a divorce and I was in a bad spot. (In more than one way…but we’ll talk about this one for now) He wanted to keep the house we had shared.  So that meant the three kids and I had to find a new house.  So there I was…a single woman (read single income) looking for a banker that would loan me money to buy a house.  I had two existing mortgages already.  And expected them to give me a third?? There so were many conditions to getting an approval it seemed completely impossible.

Add to that, the joy of looking for just the right house.  I have two teenage boys and a daughter.  Finding a suitable space for all of us was just the beginning.  If you have ever shopped for a home, you know the tedium of looking for the perfect combination of location, size, and price.  We found one…smelled like a zoo had been housed there for the last 100 years! NEXT!! The next one, you had to go through the Master bedroom to get to the garage and through a bedroom to get to the backyard!!! ARGH!!! 

After countless hours of driving around and getting more and more frustrated and irritated we finally found THE house! Thank you Lord! YIKES…there was another offer on the house from someone else! Whew~the sellers decided to only talk to me. (wasn’t that ”lucky”!!)  NOW…all that was left was:  get a divorce arbitrated, finalized, signed by the judge… sell a rent house, close on it….get a mortgage (for the house the ex was keeping) out of my name.  Piece of cake right?? Oh and…all that had to happen in the next 45 days! 

As all of these things began to drag and snag and make my brain ache…I began to lose hope.  There was NO possible way all that could happen the way it needed to happen, the day it needed to happen.  It was down to the last few days of the time frame…. and then I got my lesson from God.  The lawyers called, the judge would see me.  The real estate agent called, the closing was set.  The other real estate agent called, the rent house was sold and that closing was set for the same day.  That was impossible!!!

So my house is my Memorial Stone.  It is a reminder that God is in control….completely…and He will move mountains and part seas or rivers to get things done when we ask Him.  I remind my kids fairly often of how God solved all that for us. 

My little “Open” church kept me walking through those days.  They prayed for me and my situation.  And they prayed again.  And then they prayed some more. 

Each morning when I wake up, I look around me at the house God brought to me and remember His goodness.  It is a reminder that I have a new start.  I have a new day in which to make choices that honor Him.  I have a new life…free from my past sins.  I get to try again to have the life God intended me to have.  Thank you God for your grace and mercy!!

Well, Here we go!

I am not sure where this blog is going to go, but I’m going to try to share some of my life in hopes that someone can find something comforting or learn a lesson from my mistakes.  It could be that it is just an outlet for my heart.  Anyway, if you find something here that you can learn from or laugh at then it will not be because of me but because God is good!