Legacy of Love

Good-byes had been said for the two months prior to this day since my grandma had been given the fateful news of brain cancer.

My best friend was leaving earth this day as she was taking her final breath with her family surrounding her.

I had prepared, as one really can, for this day in my heart since I had been a child, and now being 28 years old and a mother to three young daughters , no preparation really was ever enough, but what was enough was God preparing my heart from my loss as I drove to the hospital in the early hours of that October chilly night leaving my sleeping family tucked in their beds.

I drove the few miles gripping the wheel with uncertainty of what I would encounter, and in that moment I offered up a prayer of help for my grieving heart and for how I would cope in the days, weeks, months, and years to come for the loss of someone so very dear to me..

. and He heard me.

A few weeks earlier my 28 year old self had crawled into my grandma’s beautiful big bed, adorned with her hand made perfectly stitched comforters.. her loving hands now tucked under the warmth of her creation.

I tucked in close to her as she lay so still in her bed longing for some conversation.. words of wisdom… a smile… anything… As I watch the ugly cancer take her away little by little, her mind having been quickly stolen from us in the past weeks, the grandma I knew was not always present anymore.. but today.. my grandma emerged for a special moment in time.

Many years of daily 11 a.m. phone calls to Grandma’s house in my adult years were burned deeply into my memory as were beautiful childhood memories. A new season was upon us as grandma was preparing to leave this world for a much more wonderful one, but I wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.

She was 71 years young and only 2 months earlier, still lived a vibrant life walking 2 miles daily with her sweetheart with whom she had shared shared life for 48 years and counting.

Sewing blankets for her family, ceramic classes in her basement, weekly trips to the city for the latest CDs, and making home movies were among the many wonderful things grandma left for us to remember her by.

25 years later those home movies, now handed down to me, are priceless treasures. I hungrily want to step into those movies on the screen of another time of the family, babies, the lake, and Christmases…. Oh the magic of Christmas that Grandma created through the years for her family.

Every part of her being was wrapped in her family. My baby girls had been wrapped in her lovingly made crocheted blankets as she rocked them gently and whispered loving things only babies could understand.

She taught me the art at a young age…crocheting …and how to hold my babies lovingly in my arms as she did.

Now nestled beside her, all these beautiful memories washing over my heart…my grandma’s eyes were telling a story… she was ready to take a journey to another land to meet her God and all those whom she had missed so dearly including her father who had suddenly died one Christmas… Oh how she had missed them all.

A moment my Grandma had with a best friend a few days earlier painted a picture for my heart that helped me to say goodbye.

As my Grandma had been laying in the bed so the story goes, her eyes staring far far away, her friend came in close and spoke in a low soft voice..

.” You see it… don’t you??”

My grandma slowly nodded her head now propped up in a soft white pillow.

She whispered slowly. YES..YES I do! and it’s BEAUTIFUL….

Hearing this shared experience from her friend I couldn’t wish her to stay any longer especially with the cancer stealing her away from us so mercilessly.

My God’s heart hurt with me.

As I gazed longingly at my beloved Grandma, her white wavy hair framing her face lined with much life lived, tears moistened the corner of my eyes. Grandma turned her gaze to me and asked very matter-of-factly,

“So what do you want to do with your life?”

My answer came quickly as I sat startled for a moment. I replied…

” I want to love my family like you have!”

It was a short simple answer not covering everything I wanted to do with my life, but in that moment.. loving my growing family and those to come, the way she had for so many years, covered everything. It was a legacy I wanted to carry on.

Many years later our fifteen foot harvest rustic wooden table would seat my ever-growing family, children and grandchildren and still counting.

I still feel her beside me as I open that front door as

my kids and grandkids come stumbling in with their giggles and “Grandma!” with arms open wide, my heart having those same beautiful memories of life with Grandma. I love them like she loved me /us ..her family. It was more than enough so long ago with my grandma…it was and still is a legacy of love.

Now making my way through the darkness on the deserted highway in the black of the night, my prayers to my God was answered. Our journey on earth together was ending, but her legacy would carry on 25 years later.

My heart knows she has enjoyed the beauty of Heaven..the glimpse she saw then, now experienced in full for all eternity. And just like my grandma’s love was enough for her family here on this earth, God’s love was enough for me in that change of season.. losing my friend, my grandma.

His love came in the form of peace Peace I still carry today knowing I too will experience the Wonders and beauties of Heaven as his child in His legacy of love.

Leave a legacy of love today.. it is the greatest gift you can ever leave♥️♥️

No More

Walking didn’t seem the best option any longer as my husband stumbled out of the truck, white knuckling his way along the edge of the box rim attempting to remain upright on the parking lot of the ER.

I frantically ran for help.

As the ER nurses all but dumped his increasingly helpless body into a wheelchair, my bewildered mind couldn’t help but imagine how his/our life was about to change.

The decline of my husband’s health had taken a nose dive days before and was all but deteriorating in front of our eyes.

As I followed the medical team wheeling my husband into the ER, I realized this was going to be a very different day…I felt it…and different it was to say the least.

By the time he finished triage, he could barely walk. Whatever was happening to him was happening fast.

After a mirage of scans and tests, the diagnosis came in …a massive heart attack.

Heart attack…wow….trying to let that sink in, we settled in on the cardiac ward intent on following this journey that this diagnosis would take us through, and hoped this potentially life changing news would lead us on a journey of recovery sooner than later…

But it was to be a journey we will never forget.

The next couple of days brought us to a shocking turn of events as my husband’s mobility started to deteriorate, his body paralyzing from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head…the prognosis took an alarming turn…1 in 100,000..

Gillian Barre Syndrome…

No heart attack.

Our lives seemed to be spinning out of control as if in a bad movie…but there was no changing the channel…we were in for the ride of our lives.

Watching my husband lay in the metal hospital bed, rails holding in his helpless body, machines beeping all around us, only being able to move his eyes…

Our world as we knew it seemed to be crashing down around us at an alarming rate.

Where was life taking him??…us…our children…our grandchildren??…the youngest just 3 months old.

Heading home one night from the hospital after an exausting week with no change, my mind and my heart wanted to fear the unknown. As I fell into my unmade bed that night, my head hit the pillow, exausted.

My mind was still racing as I remembered what I had started listening to the last couple of months…

“Speak to your mountain.”

“God has given you the authority over your problems in His name.”

“God wants you well.”

The doctor had just given us a description of what was happening in my husband’s body at this point, especially painting a picture of his spine and it’s short comings at this point.

Until his body would heal itself and the nerve endings to a degree…there was no point in starting rehab or any hope of recovery…. statistics were the only answers they had for us at this point….

At best.. lifelong pain in the hands and feet and long term instability.

At the worst…confined to a wheelchair… respirator…or even death.

As I lay there that night, I spoke to the seemingly enormous mountain in ours lives and I spoke life into Bruce’s body as I had heard to do. It was all very new to me but I knew I needed comfort…answers…but most of all hope. Hope of a healed husband that would walk confidently with strength back into our home..and back into.our growing families lives.

What did I have to lose?

Falling into a deep exausted sleep after my short prayer, I experienced a dream so vivid, depicting my husband’s spine with what looked like giant fluffy white pillows wrapped around it from top to bottom all around the nerve endings…protecting the damage. In my dream I saw this as protection against any further damage…and healing.

Oh how I longed for healing.

I awoke with new found peace and rest the next morning. I felt like I had slept for days.

I arrived at the hospital that morning to the news that his spine and the nerve endings were responding and healing had begun…

How utterly incredible! Against all odds and statistics…but I knew my God was not a God of mere statistics…He was showing us all that in these moments.

Days later I experienced another very vivid dream. I saw my husband walking in a field with tall waving yellow grass towards a woman in the distance.who was bending down holding the hands of 2 small children.

We had lost our second baby 25 years before, and I knew beyond a shadow, this was our child.

As he got closer, it became clear the woman was my husband’s mother who had passed on 5 years earlier.

She waved at him to turn back and said…

“It’s not your time yet.”

I awoke with a jolt and knew with such certainty my fears of death being the end result had been quieted by a dream I called a “heaven” dream sent by God to my anxious heart in those moments of those long hours, days, and weeks.

Three weeks went by and paralysis was still a big part of his life..yet I held on to His promises…speaking to my mountain and speaking life…

A five day $25, 000 blood treatment hung from an IV pole having been declared the liquid gold that would save his life as declared by the doctor.

Week four was rounding the corner and small improvements turned into big improvements in a short time.

His legs and arms began to moved as rehab had begun. By week six he was making strides with a walker down the hospital halls. The nurses on every rotation became his cheering section along with many a senior in the rehab, giving them something to look forward to everyday too.

The days were looking brighter.

As the first day trip was signed off by the doctor, we made our first trip in the truck with the walker tucked away in the box…headed straight for home as per hubby’s wishes. Pulling up the driveway, me not quite having put the truck in park, he jumped out of the truck and left his walker behind as he grabbed the wall on the side of the house pulling himself heavily onto every step. I frantically tried to grab the walker from the truck but got waved away as he made it in the front door.

Heading straight for the dining room table in his unsteady legs, he pulled out his chair…and sat down…

I saw the look in his eyes and knew in that moment he was seeing himself whole and healed back in his home.

The day then finally arrived…

He was going home.

As he walked tall past the nurse’s station to say goodbye and thank-you, he was met with huge smiles and cheering and was giving the title he still wears with incredible gratefulness….

The Miracle Man.

What was to have taken possibly years to recover or at worst death…turned into a life changing 6 weeks in an incredibly different way.

He was the walking miracle…and still is to this day 6 years later.

I have often looked back to that time in our lives and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was there in our every moment wanting to show us His most powerful character…Love…and His heart towards His children.

He never wanted this for us but in this fallen imperfect world these are the realities. People do die and don’t see healing at times. But that doesn’t change God’s heart.

But on that day in the biggest crisis of our lives…

We said mountain move..

and healing came.

We said… no more.

No more laying in that bed…

Thanking Him still so much for His protection and healing….

But above all..
His incredible love.♥️♥️

Peace in the Storm

Was it ever going to stop?!!

My mind was racing in so many different directions much like the raging wind storm outside my vulnerable home living on a foundation of wheels nestled on the edge of my sleepy little town.

This hot and muggy summer morning was anything but sleepy as the raging twirling winds and the pounding rain battered the outside walls and shook the windows mercilessly. A dark blue and green sky blanketed my world.

As I grabbed my 6 year old girl with one hand and dragged her down the hall in panick, my other arm clenched my 9 month old daughter in the tightest football hold against my chest…trying to protect my little family as best I could in this moment from the unknown in my shaking home.

In those fleeting moments my mind flashed back to all my fears of storms as a little girl and how incredibly helpless I felt then and how incredibly helpless I felt now. That little girl was still inside now trying to protect her own little girls…

My fear of storms had followed me into my adult life through many a fearful camping trip, feeling so helpless and immobilized in being a role model for my 4 young daughters…who would tell them to not be afraid when I was paralyzed with my own fears?

My thoughts raced back to my reality in the moment. I dove between the wall and the bed in the futherest corner of my shaking home with my baby under me and my 6 year old huddling as close to her shaking mother as could be humanly possible.

My frantic call to my grandma down the road in the same small town had had come to an abrupt end as the storm mercilessly cut off my only thread of security.

As the wind got louder, the skies got darker, and the windows seem to shake harder than ever, my promises to God in that moment to do everything right in my life from here on in in exchange for protection for me and my frightened little girls was my utmost focus.

The feeling of helplessness overwhelmed me and the thought of not being able to protect my girls seemed to drown my heart as I heard the rage of the storm outside my door.

Many years later as my continued walk with God grew with more understanding of who my God was and what He really thought of me “on the bench” in the moment

, I realized there had been no need to bargain for my little families protection that day. My God did not work that way.

No matter how I may have fallen short in life, as His child I did not need to bargain for any of His protection or even Grace on my life.

He wants to protect his own as desperately as I wanted to protect my own. That is His heart. We may not always see it in our lives here on earth but that doesn’t change His heart towards us. He loves us so incredibly much… More than I could even love my own. He gave me the authority to speak to my mountains/ storms in His name as I found in His letters to me..The Bible.

But for that moment this was my plea.

As the storm quieted along with my fears, I gathered my girls from behind the bed and stumbled down the hall on still shaking legs toward a much brighter living room than I had remembered just a short time ago.

As me and my girls clinging to me like baby kittens on their mom entered the kitchen, I realized the intense streaming daylight was due to the entrance to my home having crashed on its side, leaving a gaping hole for all the light to pour in.

My knees wanted to buckle.

Yet in the same instant I was so incredibly thankful it was all over.

Hearing the news anchor tell of hundred year old trees crashing down in the neighborhood later in the day, I was even more aware of His hand of protection on me and my little girls that stormy morning.

It would be years before my immobilizing fear of storms would become all but non existent.

I remember one day I couldn’t and didn’t want to be in bondage to this fear any longer.

It was way to heavy to continue carrying.

I knew this would be it.

It happened that quickly. I gave it all to Him. In His Word He asks us to cast all our cares/ fears, anxiety, worries on Him…so I did. Nothing fancy…I just did…and He gladly took it.

In the years to come, I’ve woken up from a deep restful sleep to reports of bad storms that had raged on around me as I slept. I had heard nothing.

Sometimes the end of ourselves is the best place to be. It can be the open door to a whole new world of peace.

When the winds in our lives blow harder and the skies seem to be getting darker and darker….He is the Peace in the storm of our lives.

Peace that passes understanding as only He can give for anyone who wishes to take it.

And that day I took it.