made it through

What a week.  I should be writing this on a Friday, but so much has happened during the week that I think I'll start early looking back on it. 

It was exhausting.  I am totally depleted tonight.  But you know what?  I made it through.  I tackled problems.  I did what needed to be done. I looked for solutions.  I found them.  I educated myself.   I did some planning.  I cried a lot.  I even laughed a little. 

I had dinner with a friend tonight.  What a sweetheart she is.  We chatted it up.  She even let me talk endlessly about Edd.  We talked about men.  Husbands.  How the way they show love for their families is by providing for them.  Edd showed a lot of love.  He thought of everything.  He worked hard and one of the ways he wanted to show he loved me was by taking care of me.  Helping me to understand everything so I'd know what to do.  It gave him joy.  He loved my appreciation for all he did.  Lack of appreciation was one of the things that made his previous relationship sour and die.  As we said to each other one time recently, "What good is love if you can't feel it..."

So even though the week was full of court appearances, opening accounts, closing accounts, learning and trying to understand new things, working through problems, talking to people who can help walk me through difficult decisions, not to mention a broken air conditioner..... I felt okay.   Even through the many tears, I felt what Edd would have wanted me to feel.  Loved and empowered.

Now if I could only get a good night's sleep.

finding the words

Anyone who knows me personally knows I am struggling with and perplexed by certain aspects of life right now.  When you love someone with an illness it's difficult not to get lost in it all.  It's a time when you feel all kinds of crazy guilt as well as helplessness.

I began reading the book that will be part of a ladies' study group I am involved with and sure enough the first chapter began with a man who was dedicated to praying for a woman in a coma who had brain damage and was not expected to ever recover.  He prayed for hours and months ... and committed himself to praying for this woman and she recovered... fully.  It was a miracle.  That happens I know.  But wrestling, pleading and begging God doesn't seem to be any more a sign of faith to me than getting on my knees and sincerely asking .... with the belief that God could heal if He wanted to.   Trying to convince God to act as though my many words would somehow catch His attention more adequately seems less about Him than about me.

I pray.  I ask God for healing.  I will not stop, but I don't want my faith in God to rest on whether He decides to heal my husband or not.  Whether my prayers "work" or not.

I think I need to come to terms with the fact that I cannot... and will not... be able to know God's will and purposes completely in this life.  I need to rest in the knowledge that that's okay.

I talked to a kindred spirit today.  It healed my heart some to get together with a woman who really understood how I felt.   She said, "What cancer is doing to your husband's body, it is doing to your heart and soul."  Yes.  Someone who really understands.  Sarah lost her soulmate to cancer over ten years ago.  She shared some personal stories that made a huge difference in my perspective.  

So grateful for that.  For people who are lifelines to us.

Sometimes my faith gets lost in the shuffle.  But... 

.... A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.