How can I even write about joy in the midst of this week? This is a week of trauma for me as I reflect back to last year. I have been like a yoyo: up and down, up and down, all around. Tears come just as easily as a smile. I feel so weak, so helpless, so unable to control circumstances that encompass me. These are all feelings that I was too numb and too bewildered to experience a year ago. Even now, at times, I feel that disbelief that he is gone. That he chose to die baffles me, even as I have begun to process it and understand. There is only a degree of understanding that I will reach in this life, and I may stop needing to understand, in time.
CHOOSE LIFE. That is the word that screams at me this week. Today, this moment, choose to live. Choose to breathe. Choose to get out of bed, to love your daughter, to be present in the moment, to ask for what you need, to know your husband loved you and always will. Choose life.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 was part of the scripture on Sunday. Again, the revelation hit me across the face: God sets before us a choice each day. Do we choose for Him or do we choose to die?
My husband's illness made the choice for him, in the end. I have said some of this before (see October 29), yet I need to hear it all again, and it seems fresh like it's the first time.
I must choose life. I must choose each day to LIVE, to accept (not embrace, because how could I?) what is before me. I know Who God is. I know He is a Redeemer and I know that I will see His faithfulness and goodness in the land of the living. Already I have seen it and He will not fail me even in the worst moments of my life that have taken place in this past year.
I look back, and I see little fruit in my life. I am barren - in the sense that I could not have birth children with my husband. I feel like there is little to show for the effort I poured into my older daughter before she chose not to be parented by me.
Then God spoke.
You look at life in terms of fruitfulness and barrenness. You judge fruitfulness by things on the surface. Joy is not a sign of fruitfulness. It is the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. It is also your strength. There will be moments of joy to come, even as there are moments of joy tinged by deep sadness in this week.
Fruit is a product of a healthy plant. Abide in Me that you may bear much fruit (John 15). Fruit is not given to the tree. Trees do not bear fruit from their own effort. They bear fruit when they are mature enough, and can bud, blossom and be pollinated. Fruitcan only be edible if the plant well rooted, established, fertilized, watered and received enough sun.
Do not judge fruit by its appearance. Even the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bore fruit. But that fruit was not life giving and healthy to eat.
Look around at what you have established together with your husband: the home you have filled with rare and beautiful treasures (Prov 24:4). Much eternal fruit will come of this love and this loss. Nothing will be lost. I will restore it all. My consolation is not far from you, but you need only reach out for me. I dispel the gloom. I heal the brokenness. I restore hope. I bring forth much fruit. I know and allow myself to be known by you. I reach out a hand. I fill your soul with joy in my presence. I offer eternal pleasures at my right hand (Psalm 16:11).
CHOOSE LIFE. That is the word that screams at me this week. Today, this moment, choose to live. Choose to breathe. Choose to get out of bed, to love your daughter, to be present in the moment, to ask for what you need, to know your husband loved you and always will. Choose life.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 was part of the scripture on Sunday. Again, the revelation hit me across the face: God sets before us a choice each day. Do we choose for Him or do we choose to die?
My husband's illness made the choice for him, in the end. I have said some of this before (see October 29), yet I need to hear it all again, and it seems fresh like it's the first time.
I must choose life. I must choose each day to LIVE, to accept (not embrace, because how could I?) what is before me. I know Who God is. I know He is a Redeemer and I know that I will see His faithfulness and goodness in the land of the living. Already I have seen it and He will not fail me even in the worst moments of my life that have taken place in this past year.
I look back, and I see little fruit in my life. I am barren - in the sense that I could not have birth children with my husband. I feel like there is little to show for the effort I poured into my older daughter before she chose not to be parented by me.
Then God spoke.
You look at life in terms of fruitfulness and barrenness. You judge fruitfulness by things on the surface. Joy is not a sign of fruitfulness. It is the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Joy is a fruit of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. It is also your strength. There will be moments of joy to come, even as there are moments of joy tinged by deep sadness in this week.
Fruit is a product of a healthy plant. Abide in Me that you may bear much fruit (John 15). Fruit is not given to the tree. Trees do not bear fruit from their own effort. They bear fruit when they are mature enough, and can bud, blossom and be pollinated. Fruitcan only be edible if the plant well rooted, established, fertilized, watered and received enough sun.
Do not judge fruit by its appearance. Even the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bore fruit. But that fruit was not life giving and healthy to eat.
Look around at what you have established together with your husband: the home you have filled with rare and beautiful treasures (Prov 24:4). Much eternal fruit will come of this love and this loss. Nothing will be lost. I will restore it all. My consolation is not far from you, but you need only reach out for me. I dispel the gloom. I heal the brokenness. I restore hope. I bring forth much fruit. I know and allow myself to be known by you. I reach out a hand. I fill your soul with joy in my presence. I offer eternal pleasures at my right hand (Psalm 16:11).
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