Tag: marriage

Finding Love Again

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It’s as if I always knew that something was missing . . .

My first wedding day was lovely:  filled with pretty flowers, pearly alencon lace, and all the details that were meaningful at the time.  I was a new believer in Jesus Christ and in love with a young man named Craig.  We settled in the west suburbs of Chicago, worked in healthcare, and got busy with the tasks of fixing up our townhome.  In time Craig would lead us to a smaller Bible church from the seeker-friendly mega church that helped lead me to faith in Christ.  In time I joined him at that little church.  I also learned that Christians really do know how to have fun, meaningful lives rich in the knowledge and living out of the Word of God.

Then when Craig had to leave and decided never to return, my life turned upside down for about 4 years.  My last surviving grandmother, my youngest brother, and my mother all passed away out of state from where I was living.  I moved five times and my personal items were either donated to charity or stored in seven different places.  I had to change jobs three times and endured two work-related injuries.  The condo fire followed, displacing me for three months in a bare rental unit provided by my insurance company.   It was there, staring at the blank walls devoid of all of my earthly possessions and reminders of who I was that I discovered what else was missing:  my Heavenly Husband.

Isaiah 54:5 (NIV)

5 For your Maker is your husband— the Lord Almighty is his name— the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth.

The Bible is full of analogies comparing our relationship with the Lord as a marital relationship.  Jesus is the Bridegroom and the church is His bride.  Our Heavenly Father is the husband and we are His beloved.  The imagery of an intimate relationship is too much for us to grasp fully yet challenged me to make Christ real in my life on a daily basis.  So I went for it fully:  when I got in my car and was in a down mood I invited Jesus to ride with me, take the wheel, and be my constant companion.  Before long I realized that I had placed Craig in a place in my heart not made for him.  Some of the disappointment I experienced in our marriage came from not understanding the VERY LARGE place in my heart reserved only for the Lord.  In time, that place grew larger, infilling the emptiness in my heart, filling me completely.

When I met my intended beloved, of course I still had a few kinks to work out in the man-woman relationship department.  One shift was clear however:  my need for wholeness was to be met by my Heavenly Husband not my earthly one.  Placing too much responsibility on my new husband to meet all of my needs, love me, provide for me, and guide me wasn’t fair to him or me.  The One who will always be there perfectly on-time with all the right stuff will only and always be my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I am grateful that Steve is a mighty good second I must admit!  Pastor Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Community Church said it best one Sunday service:  trust God.  Love people.  Trust God to meet all of your needs.  Love people including your spouse as imperfect brothers and sisters in Christ . . . just like me.  All of us have much to give and will fail at some point as well.  Only God is perfect.  The Lord is to be our first love.

With a perfect God, and a personal relationship through His son, Jesus Christ, we are free to live more lightly each day with the ones we love.  We can extend grace, grant forgiveness a little more easily.  We can love others and grow closer in fellowship despite all of our foibles.  And if you’re like me, you will find love again in all the right places.

Psalm 84

1 How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty! 2 My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 3 Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. 4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.

5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. 6 As they pass through the Valley of Baka,  they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.  7 They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.

8 Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty; listen to me, God of Jacob. 9 Look on our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one.

10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. 11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold     from those whose walk is blameless.

12 Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you.

When the time is right

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One of the hardest parts about chronic illness for me (longer-duration illness, not permanent, hopefully!) is the change in my relationships.  I’ve written previously about the loss of casual friendships, the ones based upon common interests or gathering places.  Today I’m talking about the one between a husband and wife.

Steve and I have been married almost 6 years.  I call him my “intended beloved” since I believe the Lord has blessed me with an amazing man of God as my life partner.  We came together in our late 40’s, having learned much about life, people, and the Lord’s enduring grace in the years before we met.  We’d both lost our youngest sibling and the last of our grandparents within the past 10 years, shared both similar and completely opposite interests, had to relocate due to divorce, seen plenty of changes in the world around us, and came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ as adults.  Still when we got together we needed to work on a few things as a couple.  I believe these things have become our strengths and bonded us together for life.  Yes!

Steve and I share the “love language” of caring touch.  (For more on the 5 love languages, see the work of Gary Chapman.)  Therein the challenge of late lies.  The most noxious symptom of Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome for me is seizure-like episodes, 3-4 times per day.  Most any sensory stimuli can make a seizure attack worse or even trigger one if it is intense enough.  An episode can become  worse after it starts if Steve or anyone touches me.  So imagine a loving spouse attempting to comfort his or her beloved at a time of severe illness, reaching out and discovering that the gesture actually makes the person worse!  And if this happens over an over again, despite the caution, precautions taken to be gentle or vary the type of comfort, the spouse can become discouraged.  In our marriage, we have decided to work with the symptomatology and find a firm touch or closeness by proximity that sort of worked for me.  Thankfully, Steve did not stop trying altogether.  I understand that could have happened.

After all, the worst seizure attacks and convulsions happen late at night.  Steve often needs to go to bed to get up for work or another commitment the next morning so he simply cannot stay up with me night after night.  Our physical intimacy suffers.  Oh and if the attack isn’t so bad and we attempt marital relations, it’s a crap shoot whether or not the noxious symptoms start again.  Can you imagine turning something intended to be precious into something so ugly?  We often don’t even “go there” if I’m feeling sick or I’m in “pre-tic mode.”  The heartache of frustrating my spouse isn’t worth the Russian roulette we must play to see if things are going to work out o.k.  Stopping a tender moment also wrecks my thought process; it wrecks “the mood” for me.  Steve just says, unbelievably, that he doesn’t mind or that we had a time of closeness anyways.  Where do they make guys like him anyways?  Certainly I had not seen any in my past . . .

And this is where I must trust the Lord to sustain me, to sustain Steve-and-me through this season of our relationship.  I am incredibly blessed to be married to a man who loves me truly, “in sickness and in health.”  I did not experience this when I was married before as a young woman.  The Lord allowed certain health issues at that time to challenge us, test us, deepen our faith and we both failed to lean on His leading to overcome the trials.  In the end, my former spouse turned to another woman for solace and physical intimacy.  She was an unlikely comfort:  wealthy, mother of 6 children, and spouse of a man about to be imprisoned for embezzlement.  Craig left anyways.  And what that left me was a fear of relational intimacy or at least of trusting another man to endure the inevitable trials of life.

In the time that followed as a single woman, I turned to my Heavenly Husband for comfort, protection, provision.  He was my constant companion and much healing occurred.  It wasn’t until a time of serious illness struck 2 years ago and 4 years into my marriage to Steve that I realized a little more recovery was needed.  Steve’s steadfastness strengthened by his true relationship with the Lord has never waivered.  Never!  I am humbled and grateful.  I often see in Steve:  “Jesus with skin on.”  Steve has been wounded by his past and an ex-wife who disrespected him terribly.  Regardless, he has rarely brought any vulnerability from that experience to our marriage.  He, too, has allowed the Lord to “restore the years the locusts have eaten” (Joel 2:25), rising up to become the spiritual leader God intended.  So glad he’s tall too.  I love looking up to my Stevers.

When the time is right, when we have submitted ourselves to the refining fire that can be the trials of life, when we are faithful to the calling the Lord lays before us, we too may be rewarded with blessings beyond belief.  Those blessings may not be what many think of as gifts or rewards.  For me and my beloved, those good things are the ability to overcome the wretched things of life in a way that actually deepens our love relationship together as well as our walk with the Lord.  My hope in writing this is that you are also seeking the One who knows your pain and loves you just as you are:  the person of Jesus Christ.  (Psalm 41:1-3)  He may indeed bring you an angel to minister to your needs, a “Jesus with skin on.”  He may bring you to the foot of His throne of grace a few times in desperation, alone.  I know that He will not frustrate you beyond what you can handle, however, and will fill your heart with unspeakable joy someday.  (Romans 5:3-5)

I am grateful to see the latter despite wretched illness.  I pray that you too, Gentle Reader, will be able to see all this and more when the time in your life is right.  (Ecclesiastes 3)  The sorrow will not be wasted, of that I am sure if we but keep our eyes fixed on the face of Christ.  We may even get a sweet snuggle with someone special too!

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Addendum:  A new medication is bringing new hope.  I’m down to about 1 attack per day and they are less intense.  We are holding onto hope as this journey of illness appears to be changing.  Praise the Lord!!!!

Temporary Stability at Last!

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DSCF7494
Steve and Julie at Sunset Beach in Tarpon Springs, Florida, January 13, 2013

Looks like I’ll be staying at a local hotel for at least the next week now.  Whew.  Eight days or more in a row in one place, glory be to God!  Eight days in a row, that is, to get stronger since taking a turn for the better from a devastating neurotoxin illness complication of Lyme Disease.

After checking out the apartment options I could find in our town, a visit to my top pick this afternoon yielded another neurological collapse.  That rules out the apartment option altogether now.  Temporary displacement will need to be in a hotel-type of environment instead of an apartment or home with a history of water damage/chemical use.  Maybe someday I will become a human noxious mold or smell-o-meter.  Or maybe not!

I have not had this neurotoxin-type of collapse reaction since 1) touring a friend’s home last weekend who didn’t know he had mold in the basement or 2) since relocating from my home January 9th.  I must avoid these exposures for awhile if I am to get well.  Mold is dearth for me at this time.  Chemicals like carpet cleaners in a newly cleaned apartment that is closed up for the Winter is a close second!  Gratefully I recovered from the chemical/unknown toxin exposure today within 30 minutes and had a nice dinner out afterwards with my beloved husband, Steve.  He even had difficulty breathing in both the apartment and stairway up to the unit.  Geez.  All in a day.  How was your day today?  Sometimes I wonder how people tolerate so many chemicals in their living environments?  Then again, I’ll bet some of them pop a lot of pills and don’t even think about it.

I hope you gentle readers think about it!  I have lived using environmentally “clean” products most of the time for about 15 years now and never regret the extra expense or hassle.  Most everything a person needs is available at Walmart or similar Big Box Stores for just a little more money.  Baking soda is cheap at the warehouse discount stores and is a great bathroom cleaner!  With so much toxicity in our environment from pesticides to genetically modified foods and household chemicals, it’s worth it to reduce the load on our systems when we can!  May we never know what we prevent, no?

Sure miss my home, my husband’s sweet daughter Christina, and my dog, Elle.  I had fun tossing the ball for our pup in the backyard tonight then had to donn my respirator mask again to come back into the house.   My home!  Hopefully we will hear the verdict from the insurance company this week.  Hopefully they will cover the expense of restoring the mold damage from an incomplete clean-up from water damage they paid for in January of 2009.

Gratefully, the Lord has provided extra special support from three couples these past two weeks and we are humbled.  I’m sad it didn’t work out to stay with two of these fine families.  I’m sad that I am missing the casual “house time” with Steve as husband and wife.  We are together most nights; it’s just not the same.  Sometimes it feels like we are dating again with sweet reunions when we meet up again.  Maybe it’s time for some renewal five years into our marriage?  I do feel that being on my own more has strengthened my self confidence more quickly as I have needed to become quite independent when living at the hotel suite!  After all, I lived successfully as a healthcare professional in the Chicago suburbs before meeting Steve.  Flash forward six years and this serious illness zapped my confidence.  The restoration of my health has helped a lot:  I am so so blessed!

Things have happened so fast, recovering 65% from serious illness in a matter of days.  I have had to rely on Steve for so much for the prior 15 months since becoming ill October 11, 2011.  That’s getting fixed now and that is good.  I love being Steve’s wife, Steve Horney’s life partner.  I love being strong for him too, more of an equal partner.  (The kitchen floor desperately needs cleaning you know!)  We have had our long season of illness and it’s been an unimaginable strain at times.  However, never did I feel less loved.  Steve is my hero, my Jesus with skin on.  Like I’ve said in the past, he is my “knight in shining aluminum.”  (Now that’s another cool story!!!)  I’m looking forward to loving him, serving him even better now.

Temporary stability is a good thing.  In the end, it’s all we have, this moment in time when our feet are on the ground where we are sitting or standing, considering every good thing.  King Solomon lamented in Ecclesiastes that most of the stuff of life is meaningless in this vapor of life on Earth compared to eternity with the God of the Bible.  Hmmmm, I do believe in Jesus Christ as God and my Lord and Savior; hold out for the hope of heaven; and am glad to say that this moment in time is a good one!

I think I’m going to go find someone to hug.  Oh Stevers . . . .

You Can Laugh at Anything but not Everything

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Case Scenario #1

Husband helps his wife dispense a glass of water out of two-tiered water dispenser in the kitchen of some friends’ home during a New Year’s Day party.    Wife cautions her engineer husband to be careful as he tips the dispenser forward to get the water flowing.  Upper bottle suddenly becomes dislodged from the base, spilling 4 GALLONS OF WATER OVER THE WIFE AND THE FLOOR!!!  Mass chaos ensues as some scamper for towels for the floor then eventually for the wife.  Moments later I am outfitted in some cute-but-too-short sweats and socks while my jeans and warm fuzzy socks head to the dryer.  My shock at the incident lasts for hours afterward as I wasn’t feeling good in the first place.  Overall, I am glad we made it to the party and the hostess was very gracious.  I think we broke the water dispenser, though.

Case Scenario #2

Seizure attack episode ramps up then subsides as I decide to take my Epsom salt and baking soda hot bath today.  The soak was uneventful as I later drained the tub intending to take a shower and get going for the day — after all, it was already 2:30 in the afternoon!  For some reason I am immobilized and unable to get out of the tub for a long time.  My mind goes numb, I have trouble initiating more than one step of a task at a time, and I can’t seem to call or knock on something for help.  This is Chronic Lyme Disease and its complications.  Husband comes to my rescue and helps me get myself together with a little coaching from his occupational therapist wife on how to perform a tub transfer.  Flawless execution ensues.  More time passes before my coordinated movement returns and allows me to make my special diet/lunch at 6:00 p.m. or so.  I’m now very hungry and thirsty!  Food and drink revive me.  I think I’m moving a bit slower than normal, though.

So which one did you laugh at?  In the end, the second one was the most humorous for me.  Seriously!  The difference was the attitude of my husband.  An hour under the covers, recovering from a bath misadventure can be delightful between husband and wife no matter the details.  I guess it’s all a matter of perspective and I love it when Steve and I connect with the same perspective.    Maybe next time we will be “on the same page” so to speak when the water breaks loose.  This time, the bath water won, for sure.

(No honey, I’m menopausal not pregnant!  Gotcha!)

After the Wedding

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Many Christian weddings call upon the Apostle Paul’s marvelous description of love to help us know what love really looks like.  Sound familiar?

1 Corinthians 13

New International Version (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

When you see love in action, you know that it truly exists.  While love is the hallmark of God’s gift of marriage, we know that it exists in many other relationships too.  I must write that I have seen it again today like so many days these past five years.  To see love as created by God himself, is to fully be alive.  To feel loved by another, is to know that God exists.  To love in return, is what I can do to say thank you.  To love before I see it, before I feel it, before I can give it, is to become an instrument of the Lord.  All are humbling and wonderful.

Today was a particularly difficult day.  More noxious symptoms occurred than usual and many continue at this moment.  And yet I feel no less loved than any other day from my beloved husband, Steve Horney.  He is my Jesus with skin on today and for that I am more than grateful.  I . . .   I . . .   I . . .    All I can say is thank you and I love you too!

If you were not in my life, my dear Stevers, I would have my Heavenly Husband to help me through this day.  He knows what days this has been true in my past and what days He will be my Rock in the future.  Wow.  Today I have both.  God is good.  All the time.  God is good.