Seasons

 

What captivated my attention on the long drive home was the leaves. The colors that were left on the trees were rusted oranges, washed-out yellows and hints of faded reds. What was left on the trees, anyhow - many were already on the ground. The changing seasons and its vast display of colors is always consistent in coming, yet seemingly never consistent in its display. Always predictable in their changing, yet never quite the same in the outcome. Just one month prior there was barely a hint that one season was about to abruptly turn into another. Hardly an indication of what was about to unfold.

That was all before the surgeon left his knife's crooked line on my husband's stomach. Before our lives consisted of medical supplies and hourly measurements and tearful, restless nights.
Before that first drive away from home; leaving behind the "normal" that we knew, before the leaves even began turning colors - the Lord whispered deep and strong within my soul, "This will be bigger than expected. But you will be held."                                              

For several years, the seasons in our lives together have morphed and changed. Natural progressions in life are always somewhat awkward to navigate, but easy to accept as an organic part of living. But then there's unnatural seasons in life - seasons that not everyone else experiences. And the past few years have been just that for us. As a family, as a married couple, and as individuals.
My husband's health has always been slightly compromised. In various ways it's always been a little challenging in both daily life as well as in our relationship. It's left us each with scars, but we've always been able to somewhat navigate it. In the past several years, however, his physical health has continued to decline and affected almost every aspect of daily living as we know it. In the chaos of illness, role definitions have been blurred, marriage as we understood it has been redefined and right-side-up has become upside down. "Normal" is a very loose, ever-changing definition. And not by choice but by sheer necessity. 
We've read so many marriage books together...and yet nothing properly defines our specific challenges; leaving us feeling all the more vulnerably abnormal. Not one book we read dug into the trenches of the unique obstacles that chronic illness presents. It's a bit of an uninvited third party to the marriage. 
Nothing could have prepared us for how the past several weeks have played out. We entered it already broken and bruised, and are exiting it feeling even more so. 
After my husband's planned surgery (in attempts to correct the pain and discomforts that his illness has plagued him with), his body was wrecked, weakened and had little fight left in him. His mind and spirit were worse. Recovery didn't go as planned and required more procedures, more time, and stole even more of his strength. After one week of being home his body couldn't correct itself and because of more complications we ended up back in the hospital for another week's stay. 
In processing all this after the initial chaos of the moment, I've come to realize one important truth: I wasn't just held. I was carried. Carried through long days of bedside watching. Carried through sleepless nights of monitoring and nursing him through. Some tears flowed along the way, and many unspoken conversations with God were had. He knew my heart. I knew He knew. I failed to find more than one-sentence prayers to offer up to Him. Others stormed His throne with petitions and prayers on my behalf. I was just still and held on. Numb, yet moving forward. 
That's the crazy thing about faith. It looks different in different seasons. 
Sometimes faith appears as though the spirit is giving up. "Fight" is replaced with weariness and exhaustion and emotion. It's not giving up - it's simply human flesh laying down, choosing simple surrender.

Before the leaves turned its splendid colors and fell, before the long, anxious drives to the hospital...before I kissed his face as they wheeled him away to the sterile room to make that imperfectly crooked cut that oddly resembled our imperfect, misaligned life...
Prayers were going up on our behalf. And the specific prayer I requested for wasn't for healing. It wasn't for an easier life or rescue (although God knows I've pleaded for that many times in the past); it was that regardless of how this all ended - He would be glorified. That His story would have final say and however His will needs to be accomplished, that my heart's desires - even though they're good desires - wouldn't stand in the way. Not my will, but yours...

Simple surrender.
How easy to speak the words...how utterly and sometimes painfully difficult it is to live them. It's easy to want what God desires when your own desires align with His...a little harder to want what He wants when it seemingly hurts your heart in the process. 
Like an immature toddler I sometimes find myself tantruming: I just want my husband whole and complete, our fractured marriage instantaneously whole and complete. 
And yet I want God's story to play out how He needs it to so that His power can best be seen.  
The war is tumultuous at times. 
The pain is deep, raw, complex and unavoidable. 
My heart is tender and vulnerable.
Some days it leaves me quietly numb.
Other days it finds me on the bathroom floor, sobbing like a child...begging to simply be held. 
But then His spirit speaks ever so quietly to mine, and reminds me: I already am. I may not be held in the exact way that I want - but I'm held in the way that He knows I need. I know this to be true. Not only has He promised, but He's proven it to me over, and over and over again that He can be trusted. (How quickly these finite minds and wandering hearts of ours forget...) 
It still hurts. And these days are still really hard. 
And I will still struggle. 
This season in life is just so....heavy. And complicated.
I have no idea how all this will look in the end. 
But I do know through it, I'll be held.
Even on the most difficult of days - it has to be enough.