Finding Strength in Weakness

How is it that other people around us see us at our strongest when we feel most vulnerable and weak? Quite suddenly I feel weak in my knees. The last two plus weeks have been so filled with fatigue. So filled with emotions…. controlled, some not so controlled. I’ve done well until a call from my mother has made me feel extremely vulnerable to her circumstance, Daddy’s circumstance, our own circumstance, other’s circumstance. Life can be harsh so suddenly. Sometimes it hangs by a thread. Sometimes the thread can thicken into a stronger more viable life line. Sometimes the thread completely severs. It is totally unpredictable. It is filled with bittersweet timing. It often is filled with unexpected joys and blessings. Just like the saying when a door closes God opens a window. I suppose I’m learning these last couple of weeks more than ever before that when a sorrow occurs, an unexpected act of kindness, compassion, love and joy comes along to sit with us. I will understand these things as God’s grace, God’s mercy, God’s unconditional love. Clay gave Patricia and I some hints today of his experiences of late. He wanted us to acknowledge Michelle’s photo over his bed…….his way of expressing angels with him. We asked him did he remember angels around him and he reassuringly said yes. We asked him if he was scared and he said no……well a little, but the angels kept him safe. He says they told him to stay with his family. Patricia welled up with tears several times today. She lost her favorite sister in law, Vern’s favorite sister to a heart attack a week ago. Clay was her comfort today. She gently and lovingly gave him a thorough bath, slowly cleansing the tape residue from all over his bruised, thinning frame. She coated him with warm, tender hands with body lotion. Brushed his teeth. Combed his long, wavy hair. Dressed him in a new birthday shirt she had brought for his birthday gift…….”I knew this shirt would look great on you Clay! When I saw it, I thought of you.” I’m not sure who poured more love today, Clay or Patricia. Both were the exact ministry the other one so needed. So much love. So much compassion. So much total dedication. There will be more things to put words to with upcoming weeks. I’m not sure what will evolve in the meanwhile. How sweet the confidence so many friends and family members hold in me to be the strong one, the comforter, the nurturer. How overwhelming the sensation of realizing such. I do not know the plans in these things. I can only and have only been following the voice of spirit that lives deep in the chambers of my heart. I love. Two simple words. I love. I need to add a third………deeply. I love deeply. I realize more and more that in return, I am loved deeply. It sweeps over me the grace of it all. It sweeps over me that God has entrusted me with much. It sweeps over me that He also now requires of me much. Not sure what it all involves, but I’ll certainly hope that I can continue to find strength and peace of spirit and heart to follow the whispers. I’ll pray that He fill me with a gentle, kind, compassionate sense of purpose and direction. I’ll ask for His sufficiency to get me from point A to point B. I’ll ask for courage. I’ll ask for strength in weakness. I will sometimes fall, sometimes fail. But I will also stand tall and strong and succeed along the way. For that I am grateful and I deeply realize the love I feel and give away to those who share the path with me. I am grateful. I am blessed. I am deeply loved.

Not Another Regular Saturday

How good it is to have Clay back home after 11 days in the hospital. Last Saturday we were still in Surgical Stepdown Unit after five days in the Surgical/Trauma Intensive Care Unit. He had two nights in a regular room and now he is home. How wonderful the phone call from one of the surgeons on late Thursday that we could bring him home! So, this is not another regular Saturday in our home. It is a Saturday of rejoicing for the progress Clay has made. Rejoicing for the privilege of bringing him home. Rejoicing for 24 years with an angel kept earthbound. Rejoicing with anticipation at what mighty plans God still has in our lives. It has been a long two weeks; a difficult two weeks; a blessed two weeks. We have experienced sorrows and we have experienced great joys and blessings. We have been comforted and we have comforted. We have been lifted and we have lifted. We have cried and we have laughed. We give thanks to God that we will continue to receive His perfect will in our lives. I bought a couple of simple bracelets in the Pink Lady gift shop at the hospital. One has Faith Hope Joy Love and flips to and the greatest of these is LOVE. The other one says HAVE FAITH and flips to EXPECT MIRACLES. I will wear these to remind me of this difficult two weeks and remember the faith, hope, joy and love it has contained. I will continue to HAVE FAITH and I will most definitely continue to EXPECT MIRACLES. Thanks be to God.

Perseverence in Prayer

A lock of Clay's precious, newborn hair with the prayer that hung over his bed the entire time he was in NICU in Denver, Colorado........kept since that time, 23 years and counting, in the book of JOB in my old King James Bible from my confirmation day, given to me by my mom and dad.