Seven years a Widow

It has been 7 years since this journey began. It has been a journey of grieving the loss of amazing love and figuring out who I am outside of "Steve and Amy." From the beginning of all of this, I have had this number in my head; I have known I just need to get to the 7 year mark. Why 7 years? If you have followed me in this painstaking process you know that in the beginning my foundation was destroyed; What I knew about my faith and who I was became non existent. So, I went back to the beginning; the very basic beginning. In the beginning God created; for 6 days he created and on the 7th day, he rested.  Multiple places in the bible, the Number 7 indicates such concepts as completion and perfection, healing and the fulfillment of promises. 7 years ago, when this all started, I kept telling myself if I live through this in 7 years I will have some revelation of why.

I have spent so much time recently just reflecting on all of it. I have gone through so many stages and changes in this time. In the beginning I just had to learn how to exist and function. Once I finally realized I was going to figure out how to do this alone I let myself become too vulnerable and found myself in some pretty tough situations. I've dealt with complex medical diagnosis of our kids, heart attacks and multiple open heart surgeries on his father and my mother, law school, jumping into a relationship because I was lonely, an angry wife I didn't know existed because I trusted too easily when her husband told me he was single, a stalker trying to destroy what little of my life I had built back up because they were broken too and know nothing other than lashing out. I have been through so much physical, mental, and emotional pain that I have honestly just tried to stop feeling all together.

You can only be numb for so long. I recently took a trip to Gulf Shores, Alabama. While sitting there, I heard Beach Rescue running down the beach with their sirens going and started seeing crowds of people gather in an area. I assumed someone was stung by a Jelly Fish because we had been seeing a lot of them. As we got closer to the crowd, I could see there was a man laying on the beach and Beach Rescue was performing CPR. The instant I saw it, I could't breathe. It was like I was paralyzed. I tried to pray for the man and words wouldn't come. The only thing that came were tears and panic. I watched the same thing happen 7 years ago. I watched that air from the air bag the squeeze go into him and watch the person pushing as hard as they could on his chest, saw his stomach rise and fall and all I could do on the beach that day is cry. Of course, Angel immediately begins to try to help me through it. She is a rock! I couldn't stay there and watch them call his death. In my head, I was already back in that hospital re-living it all and I didn't want to do it anymore. We walked back the other way on the beach and sat down just to try to gain some composure. I looked to see if I could recognize anyone that seemed to be his wife, I never saw her. I looked around at all the people who were watching and it boggles my mind how so many people can be standing around watching this man die with no emotion; it seemed like just another day to everyone. I remember that being something that drove me crazy after Steve died; so many people just kept going like it was no big deal. My world had ended; most of the time I didn't even feel like life was real so how could people just keep going like nothing had happened. A couple people on the trip with me found out that the man had come in from out of the water and told his wife his chest hurt and then he collapsed. He died of cardiac arrest. I wish I had been able to figure out who she was. I really wish I had been strong enough to stay there and find her and just BE with her while they were trying to revive him. Trauma is a tough Demon to beat. I want with everything in me to help people through this pain, but trauma causes me to run and hide when I have the opportunity. 

I have asked God where the revelation is. I just knew that when I got to 7 years I would feel better. Surely, by now, God can finish this pain and bring healing right? I really do not have any grand answers. I do not know any more today than I did September 11th 2013 as to why God allowed any of it to happen. How God or anyone ever thought I was strong enough to handle everything that has happened over the last 7 years. Yes, I'm still breathing; I'm still existing, but that is not the definition of strong. No, I don't cry uncontrollably every day anymore and I can function, but that certainly isn't even close to the definition of perfection or healing.

There are a couple of things I have learned through all of this and these are the things I hold onto. These are the reasons I keep trying. First, I had to find hope. I had become absolutely hopeless and when you have no hope there is nothing left to live for. I had lost my hope because not only had I lost my husband and best friend, I had lost everything I believed in. I had to find a way to start from ground zero and build again. I read A LOT. I read everything I could get my hands if it was  Christian author and they were talking about grief from losing a spouse or child, I read it. Then I started looking for Preachers who were not afraid to talk about the hard stuff. Preachers who wouldn't just give the standard "It must have been God's will" platitude. I wanted someone to be able to explain to me how I'm supposed to keep going and trusting in a God who did not fix my problem. Hope comes in many different ways, but for me I listened to a lot of Jentzen Franklin and Steven Furtick. When I was driving I connected my phone to the car stereo system via bluetooth and looked up their sermons on you tube. When I was sitting at home, I opened my laptop and went to you tube. I listened constantly until hope began to rise.

Secondly, I developed a close tight knit circle of people I could vent to. There is usually no shortage of people who will tell you "if you need anything call me" but finding the people who just see the need and do it is rare. Those are the same people who are not phased when you express your true feelings. Complete naked honesty about how angry I was that God did not heal him or how angry I was that he didn't fight harder to stay or how badly it hurts that my identity as being Steve's wife was gone and suddenly I did not feel like I had an identity. You need the people who love you enough to hear it all and not judge you for it. Once I started to feel the heaviness of the loneliness, I allowed myself to make stupid decisions and be in situations I would never have thought I would find myself in,. These people are who talked me through it all. You will want to push them away sometimes, but the right ones will not let themselves be pushed away.

Lastly, worship. I couldn't even listen to music for years because it was too emotional. I remembered when Steve was in the hospital my Dad said "Worship is the highest form of prayer" and as the years have gone on I have recognized that the only time I ever feel whole, complete, or healed is during worship.

After 7 years, nothing has felt different. I have just made myself more aware of what God has done rather than what he has not. Even though the list of things that have happened over the last 7 years is a lot, it is not a comprehensive list. Just in those things though, God has sustained me. Yes, my youngest child has a horrible medical issue, but she's alive; there is medicine to keep her that way. My mom and his dad have both survived major heart surgeries, I completed law school and passed the bar with crazy amounts of stress happening. The man who convinced me he was single and strung me along for 7 months, thankfully his family is still intact. I have a new revelation of forgiveness for broken people who lash out because I've been broken.

I cannot begin to fathom God's timing. Steve and I tried for 18 hears to have a baby. I remember the day I pulled the car over to the side of the road crying and asking God to just heal the situation so we could have a baby. I had faith that God would do it. We adopted children, knowing the whole time that we would get pregnant. Then he died and I gave up. I assumed God had some reason I would never understand. Now 7 years later, when I'm 43 years old, I'm pregnant! I have no idea what God is doing, but I know this pregnancy is a miracle. It is somewhat bittersweet for me because I look at everything in life now in the shadow of Steve's death. I'm always thinking about how he should be here for big moments. Why did God not give Steve and I the miracle of pregnancy, I have no idea. That used to drive me insane; the not knowing why. Somewhere along the way, I just learned that there is no possible way for me to understand it on this side of Heaven. God knows something I do not. He knows why He chose THIS moment in time for this miracle pregnancy.

Things are not restored the way I wanted the to be by now, but at least NOW I have the faith to believe that God is restoring and I know his thoughts on how to do that are so much higher than mine. After all this time, I know that the most growth and revelation comes from within the process of trusting that God is going to work it all out.