Forgiving God

Dear Michael,

So many times I have wished that my walk with the Lord could be one of ever deepening faith, peace, and surety.  That when I reach "that point" in my faith, the point where I feel the nearness of Christ, the point where my faith is absolute, I wish that I could stay there.  Stay in His shelter, stay in His light.

But I have had a tumultuous walk with my Savior.  My faith has grown by leaps and bounds only to be crushed upon the rocks on the shore.  I have loved and trusted deeply and I have doubted and drifted too.  I have loved Him and I have been so angry at Him that I couldn't bear to think of trusting Him with the most trivial matter, because He had let me down once too often.

I have been so angry with God, Michael.  Tomorrow it will be six months since He took you away from me.  I have been furious. I have felt betrayed.  I had finally learned to trust Him with my relationships. I had trusted him to protect my heart, and He broke my heart harder than it has ever been broken.  But, even in my anger, I knew that I needed Him.

It's been so hard to wrap my mind around how God could do this.  How could my loving Savior have taken the one thing I had waited my whole life for?  How could He have given me my hearts desire, and only 2 years and 9 months later, He took it from me?

When I look back at my life, when I look at the pain, the loss, I can trace most of those hard times back to my own decisions.  And I take responsibility for making those decisions.  Those heartaches were not God's failing. Those things were of my own making.  Most of those times, I was living contrary to God's desires in my life, and the outcome could be foretold.  

But, what about when you're walking in God's word?  When you believe that you're finally in a place where you can best serve Christ, when you are praising Him and trying your best to live your life according to His covenant and you suffer anyway?  That's so much harder to wrap your heart around.  And it's those times, I believe, that test your faith more than any other.  It feels like God's cheating somehow...not playing by the rules.

And I have screamed "foul" into the Heavens.  I have told God that He is a cheater, a liar, that he betrayed me and hurt me and has a sick sense of humor.  And simultaneously, in my small inner voice, I beg, "please protect me from the enemy while I'm so furious at You, please, Lord, keep my heart and my soul and my mind safe from the enemy because I'm alone and I'm hurting and I'm vulnerable and scared".  And I convince myself that it's me (talk about a sense of self importance) that has the right to forgive God!

I am so very glad that I serve a Master who is big enough to forgive me, that has a sense of humor and will open His arms and welcome me into them when I ask Him to forgive me for being such a spoiled brat, for throwing such a tantrum.

Do you see, Michael, what a precious gift Jesus trusted me with?  He knew all along that you would come home to Him when you did.  And yet He trusted me to love you and cherish you in those last years.  He gave me this beautiful gift to love and to treasure.  He gave you to me.   He gave me 2 years and 9 months of having had just a glimpse of His unconditional love through you.  He chose me among all women to be loved by you.

But it's not easy to give back a gift such as you, a gift that was adored and cherished.  And because God is faithful and true, and He still loves me,He has opened my eyes through this, the hardest days of my journey.  Because today, He showed me something I should have already known.  Today as the church sang "How Great Is My God", He opened my eyes and said "Michael Fisher Lives".  Baby, He didn't take you FROM me, he took you TO Him!  Michael Fisher lives!  And I will see  you again.  Because Christ loves, because Christ died, I will be with you once more.

Today, my journey led me on a path that is easier walked.  Just for today, I can rest beside His still waters and I can lay back and look into the Heavens and say "There is my redeemer.  There is the one who loved me so much, that not only did He die for me, but he gave life to me.  Not only did He send me the gift of my beautiful husband, but he gave life to you abundantly, he gave life to you again". 

I have been on this journey for six months tomorrow, Michael.  It has been hard, it has been up hill.  I have stumbled and fallen, I have bruised my feet and my soul, but today there was a green pasture.  I know that there are more hills to climb, I know that there will be more pain and more searching.  I know that there will be more lonely nights when I search for you and for Jesus and I will think that I will never again find either of you.  But, I also know that even when I don't FEEL Him, even when I don't SEE him, the Teacher watches my every step.  He raises me up and sets me back on the path.

Michael, I know that you are with Him.  I know that you have seen the throne, that you have gloried in Christ in Heaven.  And selfishly, so very selfishly, I would want you to leave there and come back to me, come back to this flesh.  But, I love you so much and now I am starting to realize that I love you too much to hurt you like that.  I am coming to realize that I must learn patience and trust in God's perfect timing until He returns to take me to Him also.

Blessed be the name of the Lord, He gives and takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be His glorious name.

All I want for Christmas

Dear Michael,

I have given this a whole lot of thought and I've decided that I'm gong to embrace the Holidays.  I am going to do the things that either we didn't have time to do, or that I enjoyed doing that you didn't.  I'm going to go walking at the Plaza and drink Hot Chocolate..maybe I'll take Tru and Mickey for a carriage ride on the Plaza.  I'm going to go to Longview Lake and see the lights for the first time in 20 years.  I"m going to make a wonderful memory for Tru because he deserves happy childhood memories.

 I am not going to keep reminding myself that my husband is no longer here to celebrate with me...I have reminders enough as it is.  And I'm going to remember that I am celebrating the birth of my Savior.  I am going to celebrate HIM.  Because of His birth, I will see you again and see all the other's who I love so much that will be celebrating Christmas with Christ.  I will miss you, my sweet love, every single day for the rest of my life.  For the rest of time, I will have a hole in my heart that's exactly the size of yours, but I WILL celebrate Christmas.

I WILL decorate the tree and bake and wrap gifts.  I WILL play Christmas music instead of death songs for the Season.  I will laugh and sing and cry and scream.  I WILL pick myself up when the missing you overwhelms me.  I will beg God to send you home again.  I will beg God to take me to you.  I will worry about the budget, and spend too much.  I will weep at your grave.  I will send Christmas greeting cards.  Whatever I have to do, I will do it, because from the time our lives came together, I worked at showing  you how to love Christmas, and if losing you takes away Christmas, it will be one more loss.  And Michael, I can't stand another loss.

This won't be an easy undertaking.  But, I'm going to do my best to prepare.  I'm going to do my best to find things to laugh about.  I'm going to do my best to surround myself with people who are laughing (even if I have to watch Dick Van Dyke reruns) and I'm going to do my best to survive this.  To make a new tradition.  A tradition of celebrating Christ.  A tradition of celebrating the greatest gift that He ever gave me.  The gift that I will treasure more than life.  He gave me the gift of knowing your unconditional love.  And why, on this day when we celebrate the gift of God, why would I not also celebrate the gift that he gave me to hold in my hands, if even for a moment?

Like I said, this will not be easy.  As I sit here typing, the tears are streaming down my face.  I miss you every single moment, Michael.  Every single breath I take is labored with longing to have you back with me again.  I will still wish and pray that the magic of Christmas would bring you back to hold my hand and walk with me in the snow.  But I WILL do this.  I WILL love Christmas again this year.  Until death takes me, the Christmas of my childhood, the Christmas of my children and the Christmas mornings that were ours will always live.  Death and this separation will not steal this from us, Baby.  I promise you that.

And Michael, you've got to promise me that you will wrap me in  your arms, that you will ask Jesus to send His angels, because, Baby, I will need an Army to do this.  I have to find the strength that you gave to me when you were here, I have to find that now.

Because all I want for Christmas is you!

Here Without You

Dear Michael,

Since you first went away, I wondered and worried about what I would do if I got sick without you here.  I almost feared it as much as the anniversaries, Holidays and other special occasions.  I didn't know what I would do with Tru, how I would take care of him and myself.  Who would feed us, clean up after us.  Most of all, who would feel sorry for me and say "poor little muchacho"?

I started coming down with this "plague" the night your cousin came to visit from Washington, D.C.  I thought  it just HAD to be allergies.  But then I woke up hacking and coughing and I knew I was sick.  But, being the optimist, I figured 24 hours and I'd be done.  Then I woke up this morning feeling even worse, and reality started to sink in....I'm sick!  I'm really, actually sick and this stinks and I'm here without you.

You were so wonderful to me when I was sick.  You would stop at the store and get me Freska and cup o soup (chicken flavored) and you would take care of Tru while I slept on the couch and the two of you would watch t.v.  As long as we were near each other, that's all that mattered to us.  You didn't even mind me coughing all night and keeping you up.  The one time I went and got on the couch to keep from waking you up, you said you'd rather I just stay in the bed with you.  That was just us.  We always wanted to be together.

I remember you telling me that you would be perfectly happy if you just had the three of us.  You just wanted your family near you.  You didn't need anything else.  But Sweetie, now I'm here without you and no one says "poor little muchacho", no one gets me soup, no one covers me up when I'm cold or feels my forehead for a fever.  And Michael, I feel really, really scared and I feel really, really sorry for myself.

I'm not afraid of this virus, and we have managed to eat and survive.  Tru has been fairly decent, although he's not sympathetic at all.  But what I am afraid of, is getting really sick.  I mean cancer sick, or stroke sick or hospital sick.  Who will even care?  I mean, I know my kids and grand-kids would "care" but who would stay with me?  Who would worry about me like you did?  Who would sleep on the cot in my hospital room and check on me through out the night and hold my hand when I'm scared?  Because when you left, I lost my person.  I lost my strength.  I lost the one who would hold my hand and make me brave.

I have this vision of my future self.  A little old white haired lady, so frail that there's barely a bump beneath the sheet, all alone in the hospital bed or nursing home bed.  No one there to sit with me.  Just alone with the sounds of the machines and the noise in the halls made by the nurses running up and down with their carts, trying to get their assignments done before shift change. The sound of the patient in the room next door yelling out nonsense words.  I've seen this woman before. I've seen so many women like this when I was the nurse running up and down the hall.  And now, I can see me as that little lady.

We had a deal, you know.  We had a deal that we would be that cute couple in the nursing home.  That we would scoot our beds next to each other, and when the time came, you would take my hand and say "Come on, G, let's go home".  That was the deal, Michael.  But you left.  And now, I'm here without you, Baby, and I'm the little lady with the white hair who's all alone.