Finally, going to try to finish sharing about Friday now! :) Kids are camped out with a movie and Ryan's at a sportsman raffle thingie with friends, so I've got a little bit of somewhat uninterrupted time to make good use of! Some of the wonderful things that happened yesterday require that you know the back-story behind them, and I haven't shared any of that here. So I will summarize as best I can where it's needed.
We have a big day coming up next month--October 27th is my and Ryan's 11th anniversary. It's not a big anniversary, not the 10th or the 20th or the like, and so not typically one that gets largely celebrated. Thing is though, absolutely nothing in our lives is the same as it was this time last year. A year ago my biggest concern was would we be able to find a babysitter so we could go out and celebrate. This year...it's just very different. Ryan leaves October 28th for CTCA. For the scans and the biopsy that will tell us if time is on our side. There was a ridiculous irony to that somehow. Celebrate our anniversary one day and send him off the next to find out the answers that we are simultaneously scared sick of and desperate to find out... So driving home from work a few weeks ago, I had a crazy thought. I tossed it around and I bounced it off a few friends, and by the end of that same night I had done two absolutely insane things: I asked Ryan to marry me, again, on our anniversary; and I agreed to the exuberant plan for the entire thing that my most beloved friend came up with... during the one hour in between my asking her what she thought about the idea and her stopping by the house to show me what the cake table will look like! :D
Since that night I have had one goal in my heart--to fall in love with my husband all over again, and hopefully lead him to fall for me again, too. Until you've lived the "for worse" "for poorer" and "in sickness" parts of your marriage vows, you can't understand how much they change you. It's not that we have for a moment ever stopped loving each other. It's that he is sick, all the time, and dealing with that takes most of what he has in him. I am his caregiver, all the time, and watching what he's going through keeps my mind pretty set on seeing him as a "patient" more often than not. The butterflies in the belly and the smiles that cross your lips without your realizing it when you think of the one you love....that has disappeared from us since this cancer stuff began. And I want it back. I want him to feel loved, and cherished, and desired. I want him to know that my life is absolutely divinely blessed in having been shared with him...that no matter how long I am given to have and to hold him, it's enough to carry me through the rest of my life. I need him to know that he's my one...that it's always been him, and always will be. SO---to finalize this not so summarized summary---I have been praying for the past few weeks now for us both to fall hard, so that our vow renewal will mean that much more to each of us. And in the midst of all that praying, he somehow took a head dive into depression that left us both nearly writing the other off entirely! Go figure! Then...Friday came, and Ryan woke up yesterday feeling ok for the first time in a week. Because he was feeling more like himself, he and I were able to really spend some time together. We talked over coffee and laughed instead of snipping at each other and just finally connected again. Looking at him, for the first time in a long time, I saw the only other soul in this world whose heart prompts my own to beat looking back at me. Miracle number one, falling in love again, prayer answered. :))
Sometime during the afternoon, doing chores and singing into the broom handle, the date suddenly popped into my head. I went to look over the calender and had a heart sinking realization of looming deadlines that I can't possibly meet. I've been watching the basics of our day-to-day slipping for the last several weeks. In my defense, I really honest to goodness am trying. I'm just not managing to hold everything together as well as I want to. I don't want Ryan to have to worry about anything. There is no possible way I can help him endure what he's going through. But I can lighten his load in every other area of our lives, and so I've taken everything on that I can and I do not burden him with any of it. Problem with that is that when I see things starting to fall apart, I can't go to him and ask him how to fix it. That's where we're at, and I'm at a loss as to how to fix it. So, what can I possibly do but pray? I have prayed and prayed and prayed about everything I am struggling with right now, but never as desperately as I did yesterday. Yesterday I knew without any doubt that there is no answer that I can come up with. I cannot do this, and no one knows of these struggles, so there is no one else who can do it for me, or even help me. So I prayed that God would provide the answer Himself. There is no place in my life that any solution can come from. So if there is one, if God really is hearing me...the solution we need has to come directly from Him. That's never enough for me though, sadly. I can never know that, and just let it be. I can know that God alone has to be the provider, and then I have to keep trying to fix it myself until I can see His solution. I had a thought...I knew one person I could reach out to who could help...and I also felt in my heart of hearts that I didn't need to...that everything was already handled. Stubborn...bullheaded...whatever, I ignore those nudges, all the time.... not my best trait of faith. But as per my MO--I made a phone call to that one person. In the midst of our conversation: miracle number 2, prayers answered.
I can't say a lot about it....there was a contest a dear friend told me about some time ago that she wanted to enter us in. She called me and asked me to write the entry for her, thinking I could tell our story better than she could. I never did. I never had time, I never honestly wanted to sit down and recount the heartache for the purpose of entering a contest. Completely without my knowledge, a friend from an absolute opposite side of my life saw the same contest, and she entered us in it without saying a word. Until yesterday. When she got in touch, in the midst of my above mentioned conversation, to tell me about the contest, how she had entered us, and that we are finalists. Seriously. Oh. Em. Gee. Right?!?!
Now here is the tricky part....if we were selected as the winner, that is something straight from God alone that meets the struggles I am trying to work out...just as prayed for. It gets tricky in trying to explain that I don't think we will win, and that it's so totally beyond ok that I've been giddy ever since getting that phone call!!! The deepest part of my prayer about all of this, was the "if God really is hearing me" part. That phone call was akin to God Himself calling me. There is nothing else that could have so clearly said that I am heard, that He is here, that we are going to be ok. I cried like a lunatic for certain--everyone who talked to me yesterday after this phone call about this contest had to deal with my blubbering--apologies! It was a very surreal moment, that's honestly all I can say.
Miracle number three was my wedding planner guru calling me to say that she spoke with a wonderful woman who owns a linen rental business near Cleveland. She wants to donate the use of her linens for the reception part of our vow renewal!!! I will share more about the ceremony at another time, but in short it's very small and very simple and we are doing the entire thing for free -to-ultra cheap. We have no money to spend on anything like this, so we have planned out the most gorgeous simple down-home hand-made "wedding" EVER. The offer of this wonderful woman to lend us something so expensive that will set such a different tone to the whole thing....just incredible!!! Running out of ways to express my amazement at these events that just kept coming...!
I left to meet a friend, and she comes to me with a fall mum the size of a bush. Most gorgeous plant I have ever ever seen!!! Just out of the blue and just because!!!!
I get home from running kids around to friends houses and Ryan meets me at the door with a Walmart gift certificate. A man in our neighborhood did some work in our garden last spring with his stump grinder to help Ryan out in getting the garden done. Apparently someone gave this gift certificate to his wife and they don't need it, so he brought it to us. Haven't seen nor talked with this gentleman ever aside from that one day in the garden. Again....incredibly amazing and miraculous, yes?!?!
At my Friday night gal-pow-wow last night, I get a message from a beautiful soul I knew years and years ago. She makes jewelry, and I contacted her about the possibility of her making a set of rings for our vow renewal. Very simple cuff bands, stamped with my and Ryan's saying to each other. Not fancy or expensive, just perfect for what that day is all about. She messaged me last night that the rings are done, and she wants to give them to us as a gift. I kid you not, I couldn't possibly make this stuff up. God is awesome, and He works through anyone who is willing to open their hearts to others, I swear this is true!!!
Final moment of my miraculous Friday...a dear friend who shares in our gal-pow-wows handed me a gift as we were leaving. Not easily given, heart achingly accepted, and appreciated beyond words.
I went to bed last night knowing it's ok. I am ok. We are going to be ok, each one of us in our own way. We are heard, we are held, we are loved. Nothing else matters. <3
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