Adventures with God and theology student

  A Million Little Things

It’s a million little things that tell me you are gone. 

No one to hug at night. 

No more listening for when you would stop breathing so I could rub your back to wake you and make you breathe again.

 No one to tell me stupid, inappropriate jokes that made me laugh and groan

No one to leave the toilet seat up sometimes in the middle of the night. 

No one to leave their shoes by the door so I trip.

No one leaves their underwear all over the floor but complains that the girls don’t pick up their socks. 

No one to watch cheesy B-rated science fiction movies with as I roll my eyes and you enjoy it thoroughly.

No one to see I need a break and take me on a long drive to let me vent, cry, or pray.

No one to bring me chocolate I don’t want to eat because I don’t crave chocolate that much anymore. 

No one to laugh when my irritation overcomes me and I speak what I’m thinking in private.

No one to laugh when I’m sleep-deprived and punchy or when I have a Julia Sugarbaker moment and tell someone off because I have finally reached the end of my fuse and it’s been coming for a while.

No one to listen to my stupid story ideas that will never see the light of day but who also cheers when I realize I need to take my characters in a different direction.

No one to pray with when life is hard.

No one to celebrate when the girls do something amazing.

No one to wear the huge LL Bean slippers I bought that now hangs in the shoe rack over the door and stare at me mockingly.

No one to protect me when life or people, in general, become too hard.

No one to buy stupid Dad t-shirts for that says cool things like “Stay calm let Papa fix it”  or “Husband, Daddy, Protector, Hero.”

No one to fix car issues for me so now AAA rescues me, it’s just not the same, I can’t kiss the AAA guy without getting weird looks.

No one to wake me up in the middle of the night simply by saying, “I love you.”

I hadn't slept well the night of November 10th and the early morning November 11th. It's almost as if God knew I needed to be awake so I could make sure Chris got to the hospital. He woke up and leaned against the door and passed out he told me a little later at a 90 degree angle. I convinced him with little argument to go to bed and call in sick. I'd been sick for over a week, what we didn't know at that moment is it was COVID.

Around 7 a.m. Chris asked me to call 911, he needed to go to the hospital - that told me it was bad. Chris never went to the hospital if he could help it. In fact, he was unusually healthy and could usually sleep anything off, not this time. The ambulance arrived quickly and took him to the ER where they tested him for COVID and he came back positive. They hoped to send him to a better hospital, but wanted to stabilize him first - it never happened. He called me about 9 a.m. and we spoke for 2 minutes and told each other we loved each other and I began to worry. I had a foreboding feeling and I felt like garbage myself and I couldn't go to him because of how sick he was - it was a blessing in disguise. Around 12 noon they had him call me and he could only speak for a few seconds, I could hear it, he felt awful and he wasn't improving, he was declining I asked the nurse to tell him I loved him one last time - he was gone by 1:30 p.m. His heart which was stressed due to high triglycerides (we had been fighting that battle for years already and his doctor was dropping the ball big time) just couldn't handle anything else. I made the call - let him go.

Life is different now. The man who backed me up is not here. His home office is empty and it is disturbing. Our girls and our dog all feel it, we all feel his absence and yet in the midst of our sadness, God is faithful. God promised us in Psalm 34:18 that He is close to the brokenhearted and He saves the crushed in spirit. We definitely are brokenhearted but not crushed in spirit because our redeemer is faithful and true, He is carrying us each day through our new normal. A life without Chris.

Chris was smart, he was funny, and he put people at ease with his warmth and his presence. He made people feel safe. We miss that the most.

I miss his smile, his stupid jokes, I even miss his procrastination. And yet in all of this I feel God's presence carrying me through this each day, even when that day is a day of tears. God tells us in Isaiah 55: 8 that God's thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. But He is also with us when we hurt, He weeps when we weep and He holds us close when we need Him and that carries me through the moments of sorrow and the moments when I am frustrated or just missing Chris.

13 Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 Then, passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him.

Mark 2: 13 & 14 (CSB)

I love that Matthew (also called Levi) didn't stop and ask a million questions. Jesus said, "Follow me" and he got up and left. The truth is Levi had probably been hearing about Jesus for weeks before Jesus came, hearing how He had made the lame walk, made the blind see, and healed the lepers, the demon possed, and healed the sick. It is possible that hearing that Jesus touched lepers resonated with Matthew on a deeper level than other people.

To be a tax collector in Jesus and Matthew’s day meant you worked for the Roman Empire. To the people living in Israel, that made Matthew a traitor. He could no longer attend services at the synagogue, he was no longer welcome in polite company. The Romans didn’t like him either, but he was at least given guards to make sure he wasn’t robbed or injured. What little we know about Matthew is that he was probably from the line of the priests of Levi (hence they were called Levites) and that meant he not only had chosen to work for the enemy but he had turned his back on God in the eyes of his friends and families. Worse, most tax collectors overcharged the people of Israel to make a prophet, and Rome allowed them to do this. I suspect Matthew may have felt rather lonely at times.

Then as Matthew begins to hear about this man, Yeshua who did amazing things, I suspect he became curious. So when Jesus came to his tax booth, Levi (a.k.a. Matthew) probably sat in shock and awe until Jesus said, “Follow me.” And without a moment’s hesitation or cause for concern, Matthew gave the guard his books and money bags and left. In one moment, Matthew left a life of shame, ridicule, and social ostracization to find freedom and life. I am sure at times like all of us, he might have wondered did he do the right thing, but in the end, he remained with Jesus.

One of the things I love about this time of year is the opportunity to thank God for all of the blessings He gives. Feel free to join me.

I was thinking this would be a good month to spend counting our blessings. Feel free to join in.

Today's attitude of gratitude:

1. For the privilege to pray for others. It sounds odd I'm sure, but honestly, one of the ways we can show others love is to cover them in prayer.

2. For warm fireplaces on cold mornings.

3. Gas in my car so I can make early morning runs to the grocery store to purchase eggs.

4. That the pantry is coming together. It sounds small, but we spent our first few years trying to find a way for enough space to hold everything. Our house was built in 3 stages the end of the 1940s, the 1970s and 1990s. It shows in lack of storage. Having this large pantry has been wonderful because it created so much more storage space. This means I can see better what we need when we need it.

Today I am thankful for:

1. Time with my husband on dates. We have fun and chat together, sometimes we even just sit in the quiet and enjoy each other's company no words needed. 2. For quiet Sunday evenings with Elizabeth. Chris takes Beka to teens and they have fun and I sit quietly with Lizzie just hanging out. 3. That I am almost done editing my book. I have enjoyed rereading it and getting back into the swing of writing. I'm looking forward to the cover design portion and to seeing the formatting. I've been also having fun learning about different options in self-publishing.

I am editing my first book Warped and thought I'd share a fun snippet from the book.

The Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 6.Changing How We Live Our Lives

The Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 6. Changing How We Live our Lives