Our Journey - GRACE rocks

Our Journey - GRACE rocks

Happy Anniversary my love

Forty-six years ago, I stepped into an elevator in the high rise apartment community where I had moved several months before.  I saw a flyer for a “come and get acquainted” fellowship the next evening and decided to attend.  When I entered the room, I saw a threesome engaged in conversation and went down the stairs to join them.  I introduced myself and one of the guys shared his name.  We made an immediate connection and spent the evening getting to know one another and dancing.  I may have talked with others that night, but don’t remember anyone else.  At the end of the evening, Bill walked me to my car and asked for my phone number and as they say, “the rest is history.”  He was in the Navy, stationed in DC and a member of the Armed Forces Police.  I was a legal secretary and worked at a law firm near the White House in Washington, D.C.   We talked on the phone, he brought me soup when I was sick one week, and I knew that God had given me a special gift. Because he was on swing shift, we exchanged notes and cards during the week through our reception desk mailboxes located in the lobby in our respective apartment buildings.  Within 35 days, we knew that we wanted to share our forever together.  He proposed on the way home from Patuxent River NAS where he had taken me to meet some special friends.  We stopped to take a walk in a little town before coming back to call our families in California, Pennsylvania, Florida and Minnesota and tell them we were engaged and to get ready for a wedding.  The next weekend, we drove to Pennsylvania and Bill met my family. They all loved him.  I got to know his family through letters and phone calls and didn’t meet them until a few days before our wedding when they traveled by train and car.  Seventy days after our engagement, we shared our marriage vows, promising before God to love and honor one another until death parted us.  

From the day God brought us together, He gave us 44 years, 11 months and 8 days of treasured memories. We found enjoyment in simple things, God’s special gifts, realizing that everything was from His hand, a season for everything, “a time to be born, and a time to die,…….a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”   I was reminded of those verses in a note from a friend when we experienced the loss of our first baby.  There was that wonderful day for each of us when we realized that we had missed the mark, and needed a Savior, and how God drew us, with loving kindness and infinite patience and as we repented, gave us the gift of faith, and His mercy and Grace, indwelling us with His Holy Spirit and making us a new creation in Christ.                  

There were incredible joys through our years together, “best days” when together we experienced the wonder of holding our three newborn babies in our arms, and times of  laughter and tears that all parents experience as their children grow.  There were baby dedications, seeing our children surrender to the Lord, vacations at the beach, Kindergarten graduations, ball games, field trips and concerts, riding school buses to ROTC meets and a special trip one year with innumerable stops on the way for an overheating radiator to Carnegie Hall in New York City.  There were those days when your heart is about to burst, when you hear each child’s name announced as they graduate from high school, and college.  Later on, special wedding days and welcoming two more daughters, and then down the road, becoming grandparents to five beautiful granddaughters, and now witnessing their love for the Lord and being obedient to His call in their lives.

There was heartbreak and sorrow as well, as you stand by the side of your loved one as he and you grieve the loss of parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and friends, and the loss of another baby through a miscarriage, times when your children are experiencing great hurt and you can only encourage them and pray for healing in their lives.  In those times, God’s mercy and faithfulness was new every morning, we were not consumed, because His compassions failed not.  Once again, the joy of the Lord gave us strength.  In 1975, we experienced three miracles from God’s hand…..the endurance from a friend as he ran miles to get help when Bill was injured in an accident in the tundra of the Aleutian Islands and the fog parted to lift him into a helicopter, the birth of our precious daughter a few months later, and then four weeks later reconnecting me with a friend whom I had not seen in years as we boarded a plane in Anchorage, Alaska on our way back from emergency leave after a death in our family.  He goes before us and directs our steps in the way we should go.  “….favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes with the morning.” Psalm 30:5

There were times of separation,  days when he was on temporary duty assignment in service to our country, weeks when my love was on a job in the Middle East, and through the years too many days that he spent in the hospital for health issues, but there was always a chair by his bedside for me and our children when they were able to be with us.

This last year has been one of monumental grief, tears, and trying to find my way through the tunnel to the light at the end, missing my love’s presence, his hugs, his tender smile, his arms around me, his sweet notes, and words of love, the completeness as he held my hands in his as we prayed, and his arms lifted high as we worshipped together.  There is still an emptiness when I look at his favorite chair… I feel a hole in my heart and soul, but God is mending that hole.  He has cared for me, never let me down nor did He forsake me.  Missing the love of my life will always be a part of me, we were soulmates and he loved us with all his heart.   But God is the ultimate healer.  He has increased my faith, given me knowledge and molded me and strengthened my relationship with Him, showing me insight into the hearts of others. He has gifted me with deeper compassion and understanding of those who are hurting as they walk  through difficult times and are in need of comfort.  I have grown spiritually during this time possibly more than at any other time of my life.  I no longer feel as if I am on autopilot. Every day is precious.  I don’t know what my future holds, but I know who holds my future.  I have hope in the Lord and I want to know Him as never before.  His Word continues to teach me, and I see the beauty of the journey that is before me.  He has given us His promise and pledged that He alone will fulfill and accomplish His purpose, for His own Glory. 

As I reflect on God’s goodness, and His everlasting love, and search the scriptures, there is a constant reminder of how He establishes our hearts with Grace.  I must remember who He is and whose I am, that Jesus sanctified us with His blood, rose from the grave, and is coming again.  God has a plan and purpose for each of us and promises to show us the way.  He has given us the everlasting Gospel to work in us that we might do His will, and do that which is well-pleasing in His sight.   Reading from James 1:1-2 this morning, I’m reminded that we are to count it joy as God uses our trials to refine us.  I ponder the thought…”God uses those most, whom He has bruised the most.”

No matter the season, whether it be on the mountain, in the desert or valley, there is nothing that grips our hearts that we cannot give to Him.  He draws us nearer and He gives us rest. 

“You made known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16!!)

He has called us by name.  We are HIS!  All Honor and Glory to God!!!