Full of regret

The nights are hard, but the morning is worse. Waking up every day and realizing that this is what my life is now, is almost unbearable. It seems like every day I remember something else that brings more regret. I woke up this morning and remembered that Steve was intending to take the girls birthday shopping for me on September 3 (my birthday is September 4, and he almost always waited til the last minute). Because he was admitted to the hospital that day, he told them he would take them shopping when he got out. We had no idea what was coming and how long he would be in there and the girls kept asking about it. So, on September 11 I told them they could go birthday shopping with my Mom. They went shopping that day and then when they came to see Steve at the hospital later, they brought my presents to the room. He was quiet about it and didn’t say anything. I just assumed he was tired, but looking back now I wonder if it hurt his feelings that I let them go without him. He died that night.

On the same day, the nurse had brought him a recliner into his room so he could sit up for a couple of hours, but he was hurting to bad. He only stayed in it about an hour, then he went back to his bed. I sat down in that chair and started taking care of business stuff. I barely held his hand that day. The day before, I was right next to him, holding his hand, but on the day he died, out of the 12 hours I was there, I only held his hand for probably 10 minutes.

Then of course before I left he said he didn’t want me to go, I stayed another 30 minutes and then left. At least I kissed him goodbye, but then when I left the room he just watched me leave.

I can’t stop wondering what he was thinking throughout the day and after I left. Was he hurt that I sent the girls shopping without him? Was he wishing I would hold his hand, but he didn’t want to bother me? Why was I just so sure he was coming home, that I didn’t think about any of this then? Obviously he doesn’t care now, but what was he thinking right before he died. Even thought he doesn’t care now, that doesn’t stop my regret and wondering if he was sad in the last moments of his life. If he truly understood how much I need him, could he have held on. 

I'm lost and maybe I always was. I don't know

Since I was a child, I have always believed in a God powerful enough to fix anything, even death. I remember when I was 7 and my grandmother died, I continually prayed for resurrection and was shocked when she didn't rise from the dead. Growing up, I've witnessed death and pain and I always told myself one thing or another to make it easier to handle. Now, I find myself in a position where none of my excuses fit. I stood there holding on to him praying and believing that he was going to live and after they said there was nothing more they could do, all I could think is why didn't God fix it and even until now, I have questioned why Lazarus deserved better than Steve. Why didn't God just give him his life back. I have no answers for why he didn't; I have plenty for why he should have.

Matthew 10:8  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.


Luke 1:.37 For nothing is impossible with God

Matthew 17:20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."


John 5:21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

Mark 9:23 "'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for one who believes."


The list goes on and on, but the question remains why I have always believed these things, but it didn't work.  So, I'm left with doubt that I didn't have before. I still have no doubt about the existence of God, but he doesn't appear to be who I always thought he was. Unless, I'm just not who I thought I was. Maybe I didn't believe, even though I thought I did. We had struggled a lot over the past year with finances and health and I kept saying, I can feel a break through coming; it's going to be o.k. Maybe neither of us knew anything and as much as we thought we were following the will of God and advancing the Kingdom, maybe we weren't. I have no idea anymore. I have never believed that God caused tragedy, but this has made me wonder if maybe it's all my fault, maybe God thought he needed to get through to me about something and this was his way of getting my attention. But again, I never thought God would be that cruel. Now I find myself in a place, where I would have gone to Steve and laid all this out and said I need your help.  There are so many times in just the past week, that I have needed to talk to him and get advice, trying to imagine the rest of my life without him is overwhelming. 

A simple whistle

Steve used to do this kind of whistle, like a dog whistle, when he was trying to find me or the kids in a crowded room. I used to think it was kind of rude, but eventually realized how effective it was, so I just got used to it. He even did it at Mercy hospital, everyone had to go out of the room for some reason and he couldn't reach his phone to call me, so he whistled that dog whistle to let me know to come back in.

Since Steve died, we were staying at my parents because I just couldn't stand to be in the house without him. Since it's been a week, I decided I needed to try to come back home and figure out how to live. We had to go grocery shopping and a guy in the store did the whistle. It's crazy how much it hurts to realize he's never going to be looking for me and whistle like that again.

It got me to thinking about a lot of little things that make him so special and I wonder, if the roles were reversed did I do enough special things that he would remember?  What would he do now?
Someone asked me how Steve would explain God's role in this and my answer is I don't know. We had discussed tragedies like this and I don't recall him ever having an answer.

If there is one thing everyone knew about Steve is that he was not willing to just accept what everyone has taught for years as Gospel. He needed to research and know for sure that it was real and not just something that became indoctrinated into "Christianity hundreds of years ago." Sometimes it drove me nuts to consider all the things that we as Christians have been taught that are wrong, but now I would give anything in the world to see him sitting in the other room in his chair researching it all.

It's been a week.

1. I know I will probably survive this, but the problem at this moment in time, is survival is not much of a consolation when it means surviving without him. Yes, my kids and parents and other family members are important to me and I know I need to be here for all of them. But, I feel like the most important part of me is gone and what is left of me will never be enough.

2. There are so many things I wish I could go back and change. Things from the time we got the diagnosis til his death and other things that I think about like that stupid shower setting I kept griping about. I wish we had taken that last trip we had planned, but didn't go because of money. I wish he hadn't felt the need to sell his bike to pay our bills. I wish I had gone to the office with him more. If, we had walked out of the hospital instead of doing the surgery, would we have had more time? I wish to God that I had stayed in the hospital with him that night, instead of going home.

3. I'm still struggling with God about it all. Why wouldn't He preserve Steve's life? This man was a minister; he was sincerely helping people. Outside of my father, he had more faith than anyone I have ever known. I have tons of scriptures to prove that my husband should have been healed.
People try to give me something to hold onto. They tell me:

A. "It was God's time/will." Well, I know it wasn't. Steve was 44 years old and he was advancing the Kingdom while he was here. God wasn't done with him yet. If it was his time, then we wouldn't have witnessed the miracles that we witnessed that week. By the way, what kind of cruel God would want to make me a 36 year old widow and 4 children fatherless? I don't believe that.

B. "Everyone is predestined by God to die on a certain day and nothing can change it."  This makes no sense to me either, if that were the case then you are saying God predestined babies dying by abortion.  Why would God decide that.

C. "God was saving him from something worse in the future." I can't believe this either because The God I believe in created life; created everything and He would know how to fix every broken thing. If God is all powerful, then he could have fixed this and whatever is in the future.

I have been close to people who have died and I knew it wasn't their time to die, but they had been sick and they were tired of fighting; they just couldn't fight anymore. Steve wasn't tired of fighting. He was making a miraculous recovery and he was scheduled to be moved from the ICU the next morning, he didn't give up. Hundreds of people across the country were standing in faith for his recovery. The only answer I can come up with that makes any kind of since at all is that some unknown thing happened to take his life and in that hour and a half or so of CPR and praying, he was given a choice and he chose to stay in Heaven. I can't tell you how badly that hurts. Yes, I KNOW that heaven is supposed to be better than this and I am fully aware that every Christian is supposed to be striving to sit at the feet of Jesus. But, my life on Earth WAS so good that I cannot fathom being given a choice and choosing to leave him. In my head, I know that heaven should be amazing and the spirit there won't care about the body here, but for some reason that doesn't bring me any comfort. I have known two people that started to die and God sent them back; didn't even give them a choice. I have read books of people who died and actually went to heaven and came back. Why didn't it happen that way? The testimony of that story would be incredible.

Now, all we have is a story of all that was and all that will be missed.