When My Family Left Me
June 6, 2019:
A very sad chemo day that i had.
I’m not really sure why I feel so compelled to share my chemo day experiences. Maybe in some way, I feel it’s one of the only things left of value I have to give. It’s kind of a sharing of what possibilities are still left in a life if one chooses to be used to the end of it. I’d love to share with you if you don’t mind, because I love you.
I’ve been a bit unwell and I had chemo yesterday. I am still in awe of what God chooses to give me on these days, but I’m so grateful. They are a bit out there, but please allow grace and know that God can do anything. It’s been a truly beautiful experience for me. I never thought I could be blessed so big at the end of my life. Just another reason not to have preconceived notions and expectations where God is concerned. He’ll just knock your socks off every time. He’s just awesome.
This is what I experienced during chemotherapy today. . . .
I saw my whole family leave me. Leave this planet or be inaccessible to me. All of my children, their spouses, their children… GONE! No more family! Just me! No more us! We were done! We were gone! Nothing left, like we never existed! (I saw nothing gruesome or violent, by the way)
As soon as I started seeing these images, I couldn’t handle what I was seeing. I started throwing up. I was crying badly and shaking.
Was it really over? What exactly was it? Was it my fault? What did I do? Could I have prevented it? Was it because I wasn’t obedient? Was it because I wasn’t bold and brave and using what God had been giving me on chemo days? Why? What? God knows how careful I have always been with visuals and images my whole life. He knows how troubling they’ve always been; that I hold onto to them and they torture me. I’ve been so careful. Why then would He do this to me? Why would he give me the worst, knowing how they will affect me for the rest of my life?
I was screaming to God in my head, “What more do you want from me, you just took everything I had? What do you want?” Very calmly and quietly, in a whisper, He replied, “I want it all. I want all of you”.
That evening, after chemo, I took my grandson, Simon, out on the steps to explain why I was crying so much, as I wasn’t sure he had ever seen me cry before. I didn’t want to worry him. The conversation led to Steven. I told him that He and all my children and ALL children are on loan from God. That we are all really His and Steven is actually in his real home.
I’ve been talking it out and trying to navigate through this sooner than later, with my daughter, Colleen. She just blurted out, “It's very clear mom. God wants you to surrender”.
I’d be surrendering all that I have. All that means anything to me at all. All that holds any value to me as a human. Matt, Teonna, Rue, Kevin, Beth, Olivia, Bella, Brian, Melissa, Avie, Violet, Jason, Callie, Simon, Kailagh, Darko, Colleen, Meg, Steve, Kaden, Kolin, Geoffrey, Cody. (This is not to say I don’t hold everyone in my life as valuable. The message for me, was my children. These are my children)
Would this be the start of the end of my life OR would this be yet a new beginning of my life?!?!
I guess I feel like I had a “safe out” off this planet. I’m the one dying. I’m the one leaving. I’m the one finishing up with life here. It’s been comforting to know I had anything to do with these amazing people I’m leaving behind. And then to see it all flipped, just took the strength right out of me. I feel like Abraham might have felt. But I was scared and weak for the first time in 3 years. Why would God take me through my crappy childhood, my lonely marriage, the tortuous hell of losing Steven, getting cancer, and not being able to stay in remission? Why would He take me on that journey, give me joy, strength and love… only to leave me alone, all by myself?
Who would I be without them? Where would my love go? What would I do here? How could I exist? Who then would I become? Why would I want to be? What is left of me?
(I know full well in my heart and my head, that He never leaves me, never has)
It’s the following day now, I’m just sitting here trying to process and get from under the weight and burden I’m feeling. I’m starting to realize, even if I don’t have my family, even if I surrender to the fact that I’m no longer on the same level in the universe that they are on... I’m somewhere and I’m alive. I’m living and I have worth. I’ve had experiences that were meant for me and only me. I have love to give. I have two hands and two feet. I can do! I can give. I have Christ living inside of me. I have wisdom through the Holy Spirit. I surrendered myself to God a long time ago. He’s been my comforter, my husband, my healer, my confidant, my therapist, my constant companion.
But to surrender my children... what does that look like to God? Does it really look like the images I saw yesterday or is it more like... would I trust Him under ANY circumstances... to have these precious treasures taken back that He entrusted to me?
OR is He asking me if I’M ready to leave THEM?
Okay. . . I’m having some clarity here! Finally!
Do I trust what God has done with them and their lives in the last four years? Do I have faith that God has given them all they need to do what must be done? Do I trust God? How dare I even question what He’s doing with me right no. I feel ashamed that I’m questioning His love and care for me.
THIS is all because He loves me so much! He loves me enough to want me to come to it, to see it all clearly for myself, to accept and embrace it as “my path”, for the good of me and those I love most. He could have just made it all happen and not involve me, not show me. But the lessons of life are of little use unless we understand the “why” of them.
I’m strong because He made me strong. He knew all along what he planned for my life and that I would need strength. I CAN do this, whatever He would have me be or have me do. He has already placed in me, all the answers I need when He created me. I am ready. I am fearless.
BUT. . . I’m a mom! My favorite word.
My sweet Heavenly Father, I can’t thank you enough for my awesome life. All of it! The lessons you taught me, I shared them and will continue to until the day you take me home. Thank you beyond words for these beautiful, amazing people you surrounded me with, these gifts you gave on loan. I pray you were pleased with how I loved them. I’m thankful you trusted me with them and I do surrender all that I have and all that I am. ALL of me!
I’m thinking of my poor sweet nurse, yesterday. Please comfort her and let her be at peace about me. I think she felt like she could lose her job over me. I was crying, throwing up, in fight-or-flight mode, almost tearing my access out of my port to run away from what I was seeing. I knew if I told her what was happening to me, I’d soon be in the psych ward. I realized just today, that I heard her say, “Oh shit!” I had to convince her that I was really okay. I pretty sure that God took over for me to be able to pull that off. I’m sure there’s a good chance she took today off!
The fact that God has just given me, even this much clarity and understanding of what happened to me yesterday, is yet another obvious example of the love He has for me. He knew I was drowning in sadness, as I navigated through this life lesson and a closer relationship with Him. He gave me clarity enough to trust, process, and feel like the me He’s had me become in the last three years.
I’m aware and understand how fantastical and implausible my initial images on chemo day would seem to many. However, I’ve come to understand that God wanted me to have no doubt that they were real. Otherwise, I would have no perspective or contrast for the lessons, with which He was about to gift me. Kind of like... you don’t know what light is unless you’ve seen dark. You don’t know what warmth is until you’ve felt the cold.
This needed to divide me. This needed to test my faith for me, certainly not for God. He knows me full well. This was needed for me to evaluate my trust in me, my family, and God. This needed to be a surrender of ALL of me!
As I continue to process, I’ve been thinking of the sorrow and sadness of Mary and Martha, as they lost their brother, wondering, where is God. Abraham, the emotional turmoil he must have been experiencing, but he knew God well. I have seen the pits of hell in my life, thinking “How will I bear it all? How can I put my feet on the floor and live another day?” I’m sure many have possibly been there. But it’s when I’ve been taken to those depths, that I’ve been taught the most, that I’ve learned more about my amazing God than ever. It’s when I’ve been in mental, emotional, physical, earthly Hell, that I’ve been blessed the most. It’s there that I’ve been taught to be thankful for the pain and sorrows of life. I know, without doubt, I’ve been given and shown more in sadness and pain, than I ever did in pleasure and joy. I know this to be true for how God has taught me. He can and will use anything to get my attention and teach me. I’ve been distracted by the physical lately. I needed to focus on my soul more than my body. I see this lesson as something that is simple and miraculous. Once again, He hands me beauty for ashes. I’m at a place of total peace now, concerning my chemo experience. Rough day. . . but joy came in the morning.
A Response From My Friend:
Reading this was like reading a Psalm! One where David questions God, questions life, and then wraps it up with praise and thanksgiving! I think God welcomes our questions. Your heart is so precious. I’m not sure what the vision meant, but on a strange level, I kind of related to it, as I am now officially an empty nester! My house is so quiet. My husband travels. The kids are nowhere near me now. I feel like it is only now that God is encouraging me to figure out who I am - not the mom, not the wife. But ME. And it’s been pretty painful. And lonely. But I see what He’s up to! Perhaps He was just showing you that none of those people define who you are to HIM? Either way, I know He is speaking so intensely to you and frankly, it’s beautiful. I love you, friend. Always!