A Christmas to Remember

Zac, Sarah, Lisa & Matthew

Why is it that we tend to remember the bad times better than the good times?  I've heard that the more we feel an experience, the better we remember it!  If that's the case...I'll never forget this Christmas.  As my last post stated I had a "simple" out-patient procedure to internally blast an overly large kidney stone on the Friday before Christmas.  Two, or maybe three, days of discomfort, pass the stone fragments and life moves on...not for me!  After three days of increasing pain, calls to the doctor, drinking fluid non-stop, I woke up Christmas morning feverish.  My parents loaded me up and delivered me to OSU Medical Center where I eventually was diagnosed with urosepsis from blockage between bladder and kidney...after an emergency surgery to place a stent, heavy antibiotics and two nights in the hospital, I came home.  It's been a very, LONG two and a half weeks.  Finally, today I am seeing some light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.  Today the stent was removed, relief!

I realize I am not a nice person when I'm in pain.

I realize I said some mean things to people I will probably never see again.

I realize I'm a pampered, spoiled American who expects things (comfort)...

and when I don't get them I pout, scream & kick (& talk "ugly" too)!

Lord, forgive me...

"But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison.

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men,

who have been made in the likeness of God;

from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing.

My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

Does a fountain send out from the same opening both fresh and bitter water?"

James 3:8-11

I realize I am broken.  I am bitter.

I realize I need a Savior.

EVERY BREATH

EVERY SECOND

Until He calls me home.

I have found myself on several occasions blaming 'not having a husband to temper me' as why I'm the way I am or why I said something I shouldn't have.  I could not have made it through the past two weeks without my parents being here...serving, loving and just being here physically to encourage when I felt so discouraged!  

 

Recently while reading a chapter in "Let Me Grieve but not Forever", God grabbed my heart...



"Was there meaning in my life solely because of Tom?

Or was my life with Tom a wonderful bonus to the

meaning in my life because of God?  So does meaning

for me now become impossible because there is no Tom?

Or can there be renewed meaning because there is a God?

I have lost Tom - I haven't lost God.  One was a gift in time;

the other a gift for eternity."

-Verdell Davis

(changed name from Creath to Tom)

 

Another inspiring blog I'm following:  Undiminished Me

 

I am not content though, to go through this process of grieving Tom's loss via the path of least resistance.  If there is something good to be got from it, by Golly, I want to get it.  The pain is too much to come out with bitterness, disillusionment, cynicism, or mere apathy.  Those are what I think I will end up with if I don’t actively fight my way through this thing. Or as C.S. Lewis so aptly put it, “If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.”
I will get there in time.  I will resist the urge to lie on the couch in the fetal position watching re-runs of “HGTV” 24/7 while eating a case of Twizzlers and sulking in sadness.  Instead, I will talk to Him more about my little case of denial.  I will stay in fellowship with the saints and allow them to minister truth to me.  I will worship and praise Him and study his Word harder than ever.  I will cherish the memories I have and, someday, I will praise Him for the demise of one very fine young man with my head and heart.
I will grow—grow to more like Christ and not be diminished.
(Ok, I changed a few words to make her statements mine...is that legal?)