How I lost my husband Scott

Scott worked the weekend ending with November 1.  He'd gotten a cyst on his leg.  I can't remember the name of the autoimmune disease, but he would get cysts on the backs of his legs and sometimes they would rupture.  Both of us felt like we were getting colds or a sinus infection, but that only lasted a couple of days for me.  On Tuesday, the 3rd, we got out to vote.  Then on Friday the 6th, Scott felt bad enough that he asked me to drive him to Research Medical Center.  His leg had gotten infected so much that it swelled up like a basketball and he had a hard time walking.  With Covid, the hospital only allowed one visitor, so he had me drop him off since we had Billy (my 15-year-old special needs' son).  They talked like they were going to keep him for 24 hours on IV antibiotics, but then they sent him home after about 4 hours.  He was supposed to follow up with our family doctor Monday or Tuesday.  But, Sunday the 8th, it was hurting worse and he was starting to have trouble breathing.  He didn't want to go back to Research because he was afraid of getting Covid, as all the cases were being sent there.  So, we went to overland Park Regional.  I parked the truck with Billy in it and went in to help him talk to the doctor. He thought he might be having congestive heart failure.  I explained everything, then left with Billy.  He got a bed quick since I said, "CHF."  He texted me around 7pm that they gave him IV antibiotics and it made him puke.  I had just read that a friend of ours had died of Covid when Scott texted me that they'd tested him for Covid and he was positive.  The doctor told him he'd have lost the bet if they'd bet on him having Covid.  They were going to send him home, but he asked them not to so they were going to transfer him back to Research.  They wanted to test him for blood clots by CT but he wouldn't fit, so they treated him anyway with 3 shots to the abdomen.  There weren't any available beds at Research, so they put him in a positive pressure room.  He finally got some pain meds at midnight.  They wanted him to have oxygen and they couldn't order some for at home for some reason, so he called our doctor to see if he could, rather than being sent back to Research.  Scott said he felt better.  Other than complaining about the beds and that his sleep apnea kept setting off alarms so he couldn't sleep.  They called his leg infection cellulitis.  He kept begging to go home, so finally around 5pm Monday, they discharged him and we picked him up.  As the week went on, we got sicker.  I felt like I had a bad flu--extreme body aches, headaches, fatigue.  The doctor's office didn't call till Tuesday.  In the meanwhile, guys he knew from work brought over some small O2 tanks for Scott to use.  We didn't get the O2 machine that the doctor ordered until Thursday.  During this time, we were also dealing with his leg draining fluid, so we got bed pads and surgical dressings because every time he would stand up, the wound would drain everywhere.  He tried to sleep in the bed, but laying down, he couldn't breathe, so he slept sitting up in his recliner, except for one night, sitting on the side of the bed.  The doctor wouldn't give him pain pills while he needed oxygen because it would depress respirations.  He kept track of his O2 sats with his phone and Samsung Health app.  After he remembered to take his diuretic Thursday, he felt better.  But Friday, the diuretic and the oxygen weren't enough.  At bedtime, he started running a fever.  Until then, I thought he was whiny like with a "man cold".  But when his temperature hit 104 degrees, I was worried.  He'd already had Tylenol and couldn't have more yet.  He couldn't take ibuprofen because he was already on an NSAID.  I stood there with wet washcloths on his face and neck while he shivered.  I frequently had to sit down to rest since I was still sick.  I finally got his temp down to 102, but I was afraid to go to bed, so I dozed off in the recliner.  He woke me after about an hour and said he needed me to call an ambulance.  He didn't think he could walk to the truck.  I called and it was his shift (paramedic/dispatcher), so I identified him and one of his coworkers said, "oh hi, Robin."  They sent out Raytown's ambulance, a fire truck, and a chief.  He knew a lot of them.  They helped him up and to the cot at the bottom of the porch steps.  At the steps, I joked that it was "all downhill from here" and we talked about his usual joke that "all bleeding eventually stops."  I told him I loved him and they loaded him into the ambulance.  By this time, it was past midnight.  At 1:45, he texted me he was doing better on high O2 and to get some sleep.  At 10am on Saturday, he sent me a picture with his bigger O2 hoses and said he had massive pneumonia.  They have a larger CT machine, so they checked him for blood clots and found none.  The neighbors had seen all the commotion the night before and texted to check on us.  Coworkers texted too.  His nurse in the E.R. was a former MAST coworker.  While he waited for a room in the E.R., they tried to make him comfortable and brought in a big recliner.  They gave him plasma from a recovered donor and some anti-Covid med.  He said, "So I'm stable, don't feel great, but not dying."  He said if he moved, his sats dropped but recovered quickly so they weren't worried.  He said it was hard to talk or take a deep breath without coughing.  He asked about Billy, who'd woken up not feeling well.  He told everyone to contact me so he wouldn't have to keep explaining and because he only wanted to talk to me, so I was inundated with messages.  We discussed what the plasma did and he told me that he had 3 IVs and that they were opening up 2 Covid wards.  He said his blood sugar was 337 so he was getting insulin and there were nurses from New Orleans to help as a payback for KC helping them when they had a surge.  He was finally moved to a room (4105) around 2am Sunday morning, which caused his breathing to become labored, being moved around.  He asked how Billy and I were feeling.  We both watched church (Abundant Life) online--converted Muslim missionary speaking.  He said this was the hardest thing he's done--missing everyone, bored, and working just to breathe.  He wanted his laptop bag and his clippers to trim the hair around his mouth.  So I drove up there with his bag and included some underwear and shorts.  I got halfway there and realized I'd forgotten the clippers, so I went all the way back home.  Since Scott likes to "stalk" me, he was watching on our app Life360 that I'd gone back.  I put on my mask and left Billy in the van and took his bag to security.  They made me remove his 5 Hour Energies, which are currently still in my purse.  People kept asking if they could do anything for us--I almost asked someone to take his bag so I didn't have to get out.  Scott was still keeping track of work shift and said they were down 5 out of 11. He sent me a picture after he'd shaved up a bit and asked if he looked Amish.  His blood sugar went down to 230 and he said his sats actually went up when he was dozing.  But they plummeted to the 70s when he got up.  Regularly he was 88-95 on the special nasal that flowed 60 LPM.  And they gave him some more meds for clots even though he didn't have any clots.  He was watching movies and shows on his phone and watched 2 episodes of The Good Doctor, sad emotional episodes about Covid.  He was sad about our being separated, but texted "God is good all the time, all the time God is good."  On Monday morning his blood sugar was 207 and he was having trouble maintaining his O2 if he was coughing.  Then he asked how we were doing.  He asked if I was still tasteless and I said, "Ha, ha, yeah, I married you, right? Lol."  He wanted me to use the oxygen machine if I got even a little short of breath.  He said they brought in boxes of contacts for him but he didn't know how they knew his prescription.  He also asked for pictures.  I sent him a funny one of Shadow, our cat.  Billy was acting up and Scott said to tell him he loved him and then he prayed for us.  I sent him a pic of Billy.  He said the "stupid" lung doctor wanted him to lay prone in an airbed, which he sent a pic of.  He said he felt like his lungs were better.  He wanted to get on Minecraft with Billy for a little while.  The infections doc came in and told him it could be a few days to a week.  His blood sugar went back up to 267 so they decided to put him on an insulin drip.  They also gave him more O2 and lasix.  Then his blood sugar dropped down to 196.  We discussed short term disability and emergency pay.  They gave him the insulin drip with sugar water so he didn't crash and ordered hourly blood sugar checks.  I sent him a pic of me and Shadow.  He said his blood sugar was down to 171.  During the night, it ranged from 183 to 141.  Tuesday he sent me a pic of his bruised forearm where they kept taking blood.  He said the respiratory doc was torturing him with the "suck in device".  He was expected to do it 10 times an hour.  We discussed the neighbor who was noisy at midnight and he looked up the P.D. non-emergency number in case I needed it.  I asked why his glucose was so high and he said that Covid was messing it up.  I had been wheezing a little, so my best friend Jessica brought me a nebulizer and I sent a pic of me using it.  He wanted me to check my pulse ox and told me how to with my phone.  He asked me to get in touch with Arrena, my oldest daughter, and have a plan in case I got worse--he was very concerned and adamant.  He said it was his job to worry about us all, which I argued, so he said it was biblical.  Arrena ordered N95 masks to be prepared.  He said PT made him get up and stand and he thought he was losing some of his belly.  He asked how Billy was.  He said he felt less short of breath and asked if I was still wheezing.  He said his head was pounding and his glucose was 147.  He said he was frustrated and angry because he was sick of insulin and dextrose, sick of pulse ox not reading right, and sick of being poked every hour.  Sick and tired of being sick and tired.  He got so frustrated, he was cursing and considering refusing the glucose monitoring.  Wednesday he said he'd had a long night, slept a little, got off the drip, and had a bad de-sat after he peed.  His sats were dropping every time he peed and it took extra O2 to calm back down.  He said he was getting insulin injections every 4 hours since his glucose had gone down.  Then he asked how I was feeling and how Billy was doing.  I'd stopped wheezing but I ached all over and hadn't slept well.  Then he asked how Arrena was because she had just called to check on us.  He said he was frustrated with how long it was taking to heal and that he was very uncomfortable.  I asked if he was on steroids and he said he was and that's why they were worried about his blood sugar.  He asked if I talked to his coworker because there was a big issue with emergency pay.  He forwarded me the emails.  They were trying to exclude dispatch from emergency pay and the union was filing a grievance.  He said he missed me and said he thought this was the longest we'd been apart in 11 years.  He reminded me to keep doing my self-care (it had been a year since I was hospitalized and I was still fighting daily depression).  He told me he'd paid the bills.  He watched Iron Man on his laptop and had a cheeseburger (or half of one) for dinner, inspired by the movie.  He again asked how I was doing and said his breathing wasn't too bad.  He texted, "I spent the last nearly 2 hours listening to Christian music on Pandora and bawling and praising and praying.  Feel better now...Needed some emotional release I guess."  He said they were going to put a condom cath on so he could try the bed.  He felt like his cellulitis was about gone.  He said his legs were really swollen and he needed them up and to pray that it worked.  He sent me a Facebook memory of the two of us when we ere young.  He asked for a selfie, so I sent one of me, Billy, and George, our other cat.  We talked about groceries and the book I was reading and selling the trailer to get a 5th wheel and the girls using the trailer like a guest room.  Thursday he woke me up at 6:55am, saying being in the bed about killed him and he was barely keeping sats up.  He said they might have to intubate him and he was scared and tired.  They told him that laying and prone were the 2 ways to heal the lungs.  He told me I was officially his medical decision maker if they called me.  I asked him what he wanted and he said whatever I can deal with.  He told me intubation didn't have good odds of survival.  He said, "I'll fight for us, just know I am very tired."  I was scared so I texted Jessica and she asked why he wasn't on a bi-pap, so I asked.  They'd wanted to but he didn't want to do the face mask.  But I pointed out that it would be better than being intubated and I suggested anxiety meds to help.  He told respiratory and they were considering it.  I sent him a pic of George curled up on his blanket.  He said he was breathing better.  I told him he'd freaked me out, which I, in turn, passed on.  He said that he'd been freaked out too and that he didn't want to scare me, but he wanted me to be prepared.  I decided to post on Facebook to get more people praying .  He told me where he had some cash hidden and then told me to fight tooth and nail for Line of Duty if they worst happened because I deserve it.  I told him to stop doing that.  He said, "I felt like a fool last night talking about a 5th wheel, thought of the rich man story in the Bible.  I just want to heal and serve God better."  I was getting scared and had to take my PRN anxiety pill.  Later they told him no anxiety meds because it depresses respirations, but they wanted to do the bi-pap.  Arrena had texted her boyfriend's nurse mother and she said that if he couldn't handle the bi-pap, the ventilator would be next because he needed rest.  He agreed to the bi-pap and told me, "I love you so much."  I said I did too but I needed him around longer.  He asked about Billy.  I'd been so flustered by the morning texts, I'd forgotten to give Billy his morning meds so he was acting up on zoom and I had to shut him down early.  The respiratory doc was hesitant to go more invasive with the bi-pap since he was breathing better but wrote the orders anyway.  He sent a pic of wearing the bi-pap and said it was weird but he was getting used to it.  He ended the night by saying, "I think this was right."  He was on the bi-pap all night.  Friday morning they were trying to change to a different breathing technique and his sats crashed.  They asked him if he wanted to be intubated if it came to it.  Then they had him lay prone and it was hard to text.  His nurse called me at his request to tell me they were intubating him.  She said she knew he was bad because he'd accepted intubation when he'd previously fought the bi-pap.  I texted him, "I love you. Don't you give up."  He texted back "Ok."  When he got to the ICU, his nurse there, Amanda, called me too.  Then later his doctor.  I updated Facebook and began praying harder.  I called that evening and talked to his nurse Seth, who told me he was stable.  Saturday morning, I talked to his nurse, Kimberly, and things were the same.  In the evening, I called and got Seth again.  He said everything was about the same.  His blood sugar was higher again but they weren't worried about that.  They were more concerned about his kidneys because he wasn't producing a lot of urine.  I went to bed, but before I drifted off, around midnight, a nurse called and said that Scott's lung had collapsed and they were trying to get a trauma surgeon there to re-inflate it with tubes.  His sats had dropped so they'd x-rayed him and found the lung collapsed.  She said they'd call me back when they had more info.  So I sat to wait.  I texted Jessica, Arrena, and mom and then updated Facebook.  Then I got on my face to pray.  It seemed like forever before they called.  I'm not even sure if it was the same nurse and I don't remember most of what she said to me other than that it was very bad.  His sats were dropping and they didn't think his heart would last the night.  The pressure in his chest was too much and his lung had popped.  I remember her asking me if I understood what she was saying.  I can't remember if she said they'd already done chest compressions but she asked me if they should resuscitate him and I said I didn't think he'd want that, so she listed him as a DNR.  I asked if I could come up.  She said they'd get someone to approve it.  I called Arrena and asked her to come right away.  I started the van and updated Facebook.  Tara, his co-worker, union rep, and our friend, texted me and begged me to let her drive me to the hospital.  I didn't want to wait for her but she said she'd be fast.  She was on duty and ran lights and sirens back to get her vehicle.  She gave me an N95 mask to wear.  We drove to Research and went in. She identified herself as my representative and said she'd wait outside.  They went through my bag, then led me to ICU.  The nurse said we had to hurry because he was crashing fast.  I was wheezing again so rushing down the halls was hard, especially while upset.  Just outside the ICU, they met us with gloves, a gown, and a respiration mask that looked like a beekeeper hat.  I had to carry a machine that delivered oxygen to the mask.  They put this over the N95.  I was sweaty and claustrophobic..  Then they let me in.  They said I was the first person to be on the ward.  They took me to room 30 and he was there on his stomach, his vital signs weak.  Seth was there with his doctor, taking care of him.  I don't know if he knew I was there or could hear me past the monkey suit and all the machines.  He was on a paralytic so he wouldn't fight the tube and fentanyl for any pain.  I held his cold hand and touched his hair and told him I was there, that I loved him, and that Tara said to tell him she'd take care of me.  I asked if I could take off all the garb because I already had Covid and I just wanted to hug him and kiss his head one more time.  Seth said he'd ask but I never got an answer.  I wanted to rip it all off anyway, whether they allowed it or not.  I wish I had.  I was only there maybe 5 minutes when Seth said he was gone.  I couldn't tell any difference.  They listened for a heartbeat and called his death at 3:23am.  They asked if I wanted them to turn him over so I could spend some time with him.  I went out into the hall and sat down, crying while they drew the curtain and got him into position.  One of the nurses rubbed my back and said she used to work with him on the streets and she was sorry.  Once they had him situated, I went back in and sat next to him and cried.  I held his hand and made note of his crooked pinky so I'd never forget.  They told me to take as long as I needed.  I knew he was gone, that he wasn't there anymore, that his spirit was in heaven, but I had a hard time leaving him.  Part of me wanted to run, but the other part wanted to stay there where he looked like he was sleeping (except for the tube) and hold his hand and pretend nothing happened.  I eventually left and peeled all the gear off me and Seth walked me down to the emergency department.  I told him my son has a one-on-one teacher named Seth.  He told me his uncle who'd been to Vietnam, worked with special needs' kids.  He led me to the parking garage, so I had to go through and around to get back to Tara.  She was surrounded by 4 people.  One was the chief that came when we'd called 911, one was introduced to me as Chief Cashen, one said he owned a funeral home and asked to pray with me.  We talked some about God and where Scott was.  Then Tara drove me home.  She said one of Scott's friends had been there but had gotten a call.  When I got home, Arrena had her boyfriend and her roommate over.  She said Billy had gotten up and she'd told him what was happening.  I felt nauseous.  I went to bed, but Jessica had messaged me, so I cried to her until about 6am and slept until Billy woke me up about 10:30am.  I'd already had several messages.

To be continued...

God Bless the Broken Road That Led Me Straight to You

No clue how many times I have heard this song, but as I was listening to it this week, I was thinking how much it applied to my life and to my relationship with my husband. I was going to copy the lyrics into an email to my husband, but he reads my blog anyway, so here you go, honey, this one's for you! (italicized portions, courtesy of me!)

"Bless The Broken Road" (Rascal Flatts)

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I spent just passing through
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

Now I'm just rolling home
Into my lover's arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you.

WARNING: Very Personal and Highly Emotional

I almost didn't publish this as it is soooo personal. But, I feel better when I write. I am able to express things much better and I usually feel better once I have worked it out and gotten it out. And maybe my struggles are not unique to me. Maybe someone else feels the same and needs the encouragement.

My heart has been calloused. Out of self-preservation, I fought to make my heart stony, so that I wouldn’t hurt anymore. It didn’t always work so well, as I still felt pain occasionally, but I believe I am still here today because I taught myself not to care. If you have read my earlier posts, you know that I went through a divorce last year. My ex-husband hurt me continually. Sometimes, when I would feel it getting to me and the tears would start to well up and I felt my heart breaking, I would steel myself against it. I would fight hard, telling myself over and over again, like a mantra that I did NOT care. I would fight back the tears so much that for a long time, I didn’t think that I was capable of crying anymore. What resulted was this calloused feeling that little mattered to me. Sounds harsh, and in some ways, I hated that feeling, but in others, I knew I couldn’t live without that wall that I could hide behind when I was scared. I COULD make it on my own. What’s the worst he could do to me? Leave me? I don’t care. Hurt me? I don’t care. Say mean things? I don’t care. Cheat on me? I don’t care. Even kill me? Well, then that just makes you my new best friend since you are sending me home, to a place where there is no more pain. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Problem. What happens when you get remarried? Callous is still there. On one hand you want to let that someone in your heart and life, but on the other hand, you are TERRIFIED that if you open yourself up, trust, expose your tender underbelly, that he will hurt you too and it will hurt worse the next time. And the statistics on divorce for subsequent marriages bears that out. My new husband is wonderful. From the beginning, he made it clear that it didn’t matter to him how I felt (I’m sure to a certain extent). He believed that if he treated me the way he was supposed to, I couldn’t help but love him back. My love for him has come in stages or bursts. I loved him early on, but I held a lot of myself back. I was afraid to care too much, lest he hurt me too. Yes, of course, I knew he wasn’t my ex-husband and I wasn’t comparing them, but part of it was fear that all men were the same and part of it was fear that it was me. Maybe it didn’t matter who I was married to, maybe the problem was me and then it wouldn’t matter who I married, they would all leave me once they knew me. Regardless of the reason, I held out—and Scott knew this and accepted it.

Sometimes out of the blue, I have discovered that God has peeled back a part of the callous that encircled my heart and I felt more love for my husband and trusted him more. Those times have not been easy. Part of me wants to fight it because I am afraid. In my head, I know that Scott will not hurt me and wants only to protect me, but in my heart, I can’t accept it. I have all sorts of reasons why, which make sense to me and keep me resisting. The last couple of weeks, God has managed to remove a very large chunk of the callous—so much so that I think there isn’t much left to protect myself with. Ouch.

Satan hates us and wants to destroy us and our marriages. He wants to rob of us of our joy. He wants to wreck our families. He is out for our blood. I have felt him attacking me the last few weeks. At first, I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me. I had a general sense of unease and discontent. I felt tense and I couldn’t sleep at night. A few months ago, we had a Sunday school teacher that told us when she couldn’t sleep at night, she knew it was God keeping her awake because He wanted to talk with her and she would use that time to pray. My husband reminded me of that several times when I couldn’t sleep, so when this bout of insomnia hit, I began to pray. But, I guess I was praying about the wrong things. I prayed for others because I didn’t think anything was wrong. But, gradually, little things started to come up where Satan was undermining me and making me doubt. He started with small things. Insignificant, niggling little things that don’t seem to amount to much on their own. Nothing was really WRONG, but something didn’t FEEL right. These things piled up until I collapsed under the weight of them this morning as I sat in the floor of the shower, sobbing and praying. If my husband had come in at that point (thankfully he was at work), I couldn’t have articulated what was wrong: nothing…everything…a bunch of little, stupid stuff that would make me sound like a hysterical, raving lunatic! I would have been totally embarrassed at that point to verbalize the thoughts in my head that had me reduced to bawling in the shower.

God helped me to understand that the pain I was feeling was this large chunk of callous being removed. I felt exposed and unprotected, vulnerable, totally at the mercy of my husband. Previously, I knew I loved my husband, but I felt like I had held back enough of myself that if I lost him for any reason, I could survive it. Wouldn’t like it, but I could hold it together. Now, I am not so sure I could handle it. The pain of the callous being sloughed off my heart is, I believe, equal to the pain I was originally protecting myself from! So, what was the point of hardening my heart at all? It wasn’t even worth it because the softening of my heart is just as painful! It feels like a strange recipe: “to soften the heart, marinate in tears…”

God taught me today that even though I have this fear of my husband hurting me or leaving me, a fear so great that it leaves me sobbing in the shower, I have no control over the situation. I can’t control my husband and what he says and does. I can’t protect my marriage or hold it together by myself, which is something I learned from my last marriage. And worrying about it won’t change anything either. All that will do is make me miserable, as illustrated by the shower sorrow.

What can I do with that? I could live miserably scared and neurotic. I could harden my heart up again. Or, I can control the one thing that it is within my power to control: myself. First, I have to trust God. He is the only One that can protect my heart and my husband and my marriage and my family and my kids. He is the ONLY one that is 100% worthy of my trust and the One that loves me more than anyone else. I learned last year, as evidenced by previous song lyrics I posted on my blog, that when the entire world fails me, He is the One that is there to catch me when I fall. Men will surely let you down, but God will not. If I invest my trust in Him, it is safe. I can trust Him to protect my heart. I saw a play many years ago in which a young man offered his heart to God, but when a girl came around, he asked for it back. But she broke it. He picked up his heart and handed it back to God who fixed it up, but it wasn’t long before he asked for it back to give to another girl. The moral of the story was that his heart was only safe when he left it with God. If He feels it is necessary to soften my heart, He must have a reason. I have to follow Him first, no matter what anyone else is doing or if my life is falling apart around me. He has proven to me already that He can hold me up and get me through it. Second, I have to be what I should be. I need to strive to be a good wife and mother and Christian, not for anyone else, but “as to the Lord and not unto men.” Third, I have to follow the advice of 2 Corinthians 10:5: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Regardless of what Satan tries to tempt me with, which gets me all twisted up and confused and depressed, I have to take every thought captive and test it against the knowledge of God. Don’t let my mind run away with me and get me into all kinds of trouble. Fourth, I have to let go. In Romans 12:1, it says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Many years ago, I learned that I have nothing on my own. I say “my” husband and “my” kids, but they aren’t mine. I didn’t die for them, I didn’t pay for them with my blood. Only He can protect them and take care of them. They have been lent to me. And God can take away loved ones at any time. That’s His right, as they are HIS. So, I offer myself, my life, my family on the altar. They are Yours, Lord. Problem with a living sacrifice is that it keeps crawling off the altar, though, so I must continually offer everything I have to the Lord. Things change, people change, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. That’s what I have to hold onto when I feel like it’s falling apart and I can’t control anything.

I feel like I have been dropped in the middle of a fairy tale. Prince Charming came and rescued me and provided me with everything I need to live happily ever after. But, the problem is that I can’t enjoy it. I sit here, waiting for the dream to turn to a nightmare. I can’t live my life like this. I have to enjoy what I have and the beautiful life that God created out of a messy wreck. I have to stop living in fear so I can enjoy my life. It is truly a blessed life.

Rough day I’ve had. It’s funny how God can teach you and really work you over spiritually and emotionally while you go on about your day. I was so worn out when it was all over. I count myself not to have apprehended though. I know this isn’t something that I can grasp overnight. It’s a learning process, a marathon. I pray God gives me the strength to open my heart and my husband patience for when I lose my way. Lord, help me listen to the Voice of Truth.

“Oh what I would do to have
The kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I'm in
Onto the crashing waves

To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is
And He's holding out His hand

But the waves are calling out my name
And they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times
I've tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
Time and time again. "Boy, you'll never win!"
"You'll never win!"

But the voice of truth tells me a different story
The voice of truth says, "Do not be afraid!"
The voice of truth says, "This is for My glory"
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth”