There's Another Woman ......

There have been other women in my husband's life before. His mom. Our two daughters. The women our sons married. But this one is entirely different. Unforeseen. Recent. One who came without warning and whose presence my heart met with ambivalence and fear. 

Zoe. That's her name. 

She's been part of our lives for almost a month now. And I've learned to accept her. Actually, she is all her name says she is ... Zoe means "life," and she is just that to Wayne and me and our relationship. 

Before you call me crazy, let me explain ...

We had a scare in early September, you see. Had the outcome been different, I could be without my husband now. And I know there are many out there who have had to face this loss in their lives, so I am not making light of this reality or taking our own near-brush lightly. No, not lightly at all. 

On September 3rd, Wayne had stroke. It happened in the very early morning as he was waking, rather than when he was driving to work on the 24-mile-long Causeway Bridge, which could have caused a horrific accident and taken many lives, including his own. By God's grace, I recognized what was happening, and we got him to the hospital. 

Doctors aren't sure what happened or why. He didn't have the normal precursors or warnings. So far, tests and labs have proven inconclusive as the the "why" of the event; all the tests merely confirm that he did indeed have a stroke. 

One of the tests that doctors ordered done was a sleep study. This has been the only test so far that has had a positive result: Wayne does indeed have severe sleep apnea, also known as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). He actually stops breathing over 30 -50 times an hour while sleeping. I knew he had some serious snoring issues, but....

That's when we learned that we would have a third presence in our bedroom at night, a CPAP machine. It was hard for me to get used to the idea of Wayne sleeping hooked up to a machine which makes him resemble an elephant. The first time he donned the mask, our dog Sugar had no idea what to make of it. She just stared at him, like he'd grown another head ... well, a longer nose, at least. 

I'd heard many horror stories of how difficult sleeping with these machines can be. Noisy. Mask issues. Frustration that could be so bad that it caused the OSA sufferer to choose to take his or her chances without it, rather than to endure the machine. 

And I made up plenty more of my own: 

How will we sleep comfortably with him attached to a tube? 

Will we ever be able to snuggle again? 

What if he can't adjust to it? 

What if he can?

Will life ever seem normal again?

A good friend of ours counseled us, before we even got the machine, to name it, for we would need to view it as a friend. 

That's when Zoe was born.

I am happy to report that there is life after an OSA diagnosis, after the addition of a CPAP machine to your life. In fact, life is really good. That man hasn't snored one single time since Zoe arrived on the scene. We can actually sleep in the same bed, in the same room, in the same house! Wayne isn't covered with bruises from where I've had to elbow him all night long to hush the grizzly! And we have a little peace of mind; we may not know why he had the initial stroke, but we do know that his brain is no longer oxygen-deprived during sleep. 

So I just want to be a beacon of hope and a word of encouragement to anyone facing similar life changes. Life is an adventure! Embrace it!

Love in the Little Things...

As I shared at the end of last month, God has been speaking Psalm 46:10 to my heart for quite some time now. And my focus has been on the "Cease striving" part of that verse. Recently, He very pointedly directed my attention to the second part of that statement: "Cease striving AND KNOW..."

To be known in the sense of the Bible often implies an intimacy in relationship, a type of knowing that implies vulnerability and transparency ... it is more than an academic understanding. I have come to realize that I have walked with the Lord for over thirty years, yet I have kept Him in the box of my limited understanding, for the most part. There are wounded places in my soul that have kept walls around some parts of my heart, limiting my ability to trust and rest in Him. It's been easier to know Him as the helper in my plans, with me being careful to maintain enough control of those endeavors to keep me feeling comfortable. 

So I have begun praying for God to touch those wounded places and make them whole again. And I have asked God to help me to truly know Him in the deepest sense of relationship. 

Last week, after praying that way for a couple days, I woke with a tune running through my mind, catchy and familiar, yet I couldn't quite place it. I remembered once being taught that God sings over His kids.

"The Lord your God is with you,

the Mighty Warrior who saves.

He will take great delight in you;

in His love He will no longer rebuke you,

but will rejoice over you with singing."
Zephaniah 3:17

                                                                                       

Our teacher said if we woke with a song in our heads, we could envision the Holy Spirit singing over us as we slept. That thought has always warmed my heart. 

I headed off to work, still pondering. I felt nudged in my spirit to turn on the radio. So I tuned to my favorite Christian Station, The Bridge. 

I'll bet my song is going to play! I thought. 

The first song I heard was Forgiveness, by Matthew Ward.

I was stunned as I let the lyrics soak in. It's not that I haven't heard the song before, but this time, I listened like it was God speaking directly to me. It was almost verbatim what my last Bible study lesson had taught, and God had indeed shown me some people I needed to forgive.

The next song I heard was my song, the one the Spirit had been singing over me as I slept, the one I'd been humming since I'd climbed out of bed. It was Greater, by Mercy Me.




Another recent Bible study had taught on the importance of speaking life and not death, the importance of breaking words of death which had been spoken over you in your life, or even those words of death you might have spoken over yourself ... like what a failure you are ... words of rejection ... words of self-hatred, etc. I'd agreed with God that I had some work to do in this area, as well. 

And now my heavenly Father, the Creator of the universe, was sending me specific words of encouragement to help me succeed! 

That's love! Love in the big things. Love in the little things, like the song that stayed with me all day long. 

He longs to love us. Just ask Him!