Unseen Miracles

Job 26:14 "And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?"

I had a bit of a crisis of faith this week.

We had an amazing testimony at church, a story of miraculous healing from stage 4 cancer. I fully believe that God does miracles, and hearing their story in a season of grief was a timely reminder of that truth. But when I went up afterwards to thank one of the speakers, I started crying. I knew that my soul needed reminding of visible miracles, but I was still struggling on a level I didn't even realize with confusion, hurt, and even anger at not getting a visible miracle with my husband's dementia. In fact, it felt like the harder I prayed, the worse things got!

I had a bit of a crisis of faith. Yet as I continued to pray and seek God, I sensed Him calling me to write down some unseen miracles, some of the things that were amazing to our family as we walked through that dementia journey. Here are just a few of them:

• Restoration of relationships
• Unity among me and his kids over every decision
• God took away my resentment and helped me to respond in love even when I was exhausted
• God gradually changed my heart to trust and not fear his death
• God perfectly timed the caregivers that were brought to us to be exactly the personality traits that we needed during that time
• Bob never lost his faith or dishonored God, and grew to love the church in a deep way.
• He remained a worshiper to the very end and the redemption God had done in his life, from a very broken and wounded person with a lot of regrets to someone who just loved Jesus with all that he had, was visible.
• God perfectly timed bringing in hospice to help us when we needed it most.
• We were able to keep him at home which nobody thought we could do at diagnosis.
• We had so much support from our church and my job. Even friends that were just acquaintances before became really close through this process as they walked with us.
• As hard as it was to lose him two and a half weeks before Christmas, I could see God's hand in it because I was able to have an extended time off to catch up on rest before I had to start back to work. Additionally, the money for caregivers was running out and God knew that was a concern of mine. And, as much as I'd love to have him here right now, I'm glad that we're not having to do dementia caregiving in the Covid world.

These are just a few of the unseen miracles of our caregiving journey. As I  processed this week, I've thought about where I am in life right now. I'm in a season of prioritizing being, of learning to be present, of going slow. Of prioritizing those invisible traits that God cares about deeply, like joy and gratitude and love and faith. For example, I'm responsible for the care of my parents. God makes it very clear in 1 Timothy 5:4 that taking care of parents is our first responsibility when they are older. But, I can do that responsibility grudgingly, with resentment, sparingly. Or I can do it willingly, with joy, generously. 

I really think that part of the second greatest commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is learning to recognize the unseen miracles that we need to pray for. I think of Joni Eareckson Tada, one of my sheroes of the faith who is a quadriplegic. For 50 years now, she's dealt with people who want to pray for her healing. I read in one of her books that she said she had finally learned how to respond. She says "yes, please pray for my healing. Pray that I would be healed from bitterness, from laziness". She's learned to prioritize the unseen miracles.

I love this passage in Job, where we hear about a lot of God's visible miracles, and then we are told that these are only the fringes of his ways. They're just the beginning of what he does. 

I want to rejoice at every healing from stage 4 cancer, every healing from paralysis, every person set free from drug addiction. But I also want to share and hear about unseen miracles. Those things that are sometimes only between us and the Lord, or between the people closest to the situation. I don't ever want to discount them. I want to know more about His ways.

Around the Bend

I’m not much on speaking publicly. I don’t think well on the fly; I prefer time to weigh my words and to process internally before putting pen to paper. Most of the posts on this blog over the years existed in my head for days or even weeks before I sat down and put them in writing.

But I’m in a different season now, a season of healing as I walk through this grief process since my husband passed away. And part of that for me, as it is for anyone who loses a spouse, is facing the question of identity. Who am I as an “I”, not a “we”? I don’t mean the core of my identity in Christ. I know that hasn’t changed. And I don’t mean to imply in any way that I was subsumed into my husband’s identity in any unhealthy way. It’s just that in the reality of becoming one, after being married long enough, it becomes hard to tell where you end and the other person begins. You forget who first suggested going to that specific Mexican restaurant.You forget why exactly someone thought it was so important for the kitchen table to be in the bay window instead of in the kitchen. That and thousands of other examples are faced not only by me but by every single person who loses as a spouse. Like no other loss, we literally bury part of ourselves the day our partner dies.

So this identity discovery portion of my grief journey has been especially daunting to me. I spent four months in anxiety, if not outright fear, about the day that I would wake up and no longer feel married. I felt lost, like he had gone on this incredible journey and I was just staring up waiting for him to come back. I didn’t know how to get past that point, despite continuing to live my life and move forward as best I could.

Then came Easter weekend. I found myself watching a biography of a Christian musician whose music has ministered to me many times. As I worshiped and prayed with the music in the documentary, I began to experience what only God can do. He began to release that anxiety and fear about identity from me. He began to remind me that there is a core of who I am, not just in Him but who I am as He created me, that has not been lost. The next day on a walk, He continued to speak truth to me, and reminded me that Bob is now part of the great cloud of witnesses Hebrews 12:1 speaks about. But he hasn’t left me here doing nothing; in fact Bob is the one who is now at rest while I continue my race. In the two weeks since, I have felt such peace, and I felt myself moving into more of a healing phase of the grief. Not that the missing him and the sadness or the loneliness is all gone. I’m sure that that will continue at some level for a very long time, and I’m sure that part of me will miss part of him for the rest of my life. But I no longer feel anxious about moving forward, or scared about my identity, or lost. I’ve even started having a sense of anticipation about things that might be different, not only different from what Bob and I experienced together but different for me.

So yesterday, as I took my parents on our weekly drive to find something nice to look at that meets social distancing requirements, I found myself looking down a lane on a dirt road at the edge  of the Ozark National Forest. And somehow, this girl that doesn’t like public speaking and prefers time to put her words together, found herself turning on the camera and recording my first ever video blog. And you know what? It was even a little fun. I hope it blesses you and encourages you as the Holy Spirit leads you in your own journey