Life After Death-a widow's story

Giving Birth To A New Blog

2009-10-13T01:12:00.000-07:00

First I'd like to apologize to all those who have been a follower on this blog for not writing anything fresh for several months. It's not that there haven't been fresh things to write. It's that there has been a baby of sorts, in gestation! It's been a joy to have readers who are as inspired as I've been this past 14 months as I've journaled and reflected here on all that God has been and done for me on this journey. He is leading me to new ways of sharing this, however, and I want to announce that there is soon to be the birth of something a bit more exciting than this little blog.

Since the beginning of the year I started praying that the Lord would show me how He wanted to use me in my new life as a single woman. I knew that as I healed from my grief and personal losses that I didn't want it all to be in vain. I have felt a strong nudge to pursue a call to ministry, a ministry for other widows. After all, who knows the many levels of our needs better than another widow? As the months progresses, God starting bringing other widows into my life, many of which felt the same way as I did...called to minister to other widows. My prayer began to change from, "How do you want to use me?" to "How do you want to use us?"

In my quest to discern all this, it dawned on me that there could be great value in gathering like minded widows together to pray, be in God's Word, and discern together how God might use us. As I prayed about that, God opened an opportunity to hold a retreat at a large and beautiful farm house in Virginia.

As I was preparing for the retreat and through a national announcement that was places on the Internet through the GriefShare ministry, I discovered by the overwhelming responses to the invitation, that there are actually many little widow ministries going on all over the country! I began to ask if God really wanted me to start another one. It eventually dawned on me that God wanted me to connect them! Thus, the birth of a new blog should be born, one with a website platform. It will be a site with resources and stories for widows and other women who live life without a spouse, from other women who will share from their victories! It will be a site to educate, encourage, inspire, and grow suggestions as to how our needs can be met, and we can grow in wisdom and a deeper more intimate love relationship with the Lord who saved us.

I won't be writing many more posts on this blog and I hope that many of you will become followers of the one site. It's barely up and running yet but keep it saved on your favorites and visit on occasion to see how far it's progressed. Right now it's simple and has but one story on it. I'm still learning all the new whistles and bells that accompany using a blog and a website in conjunction with each other, and am still gathering stories, poetry, and ideas for the site. The website address is: www.newdirectionministriesonline.com The logo will be a butterfly. I love the image of this creature that once lived in a little place and saw life from a small perspective but later is wrapped in a tight space, protected from the elements from a season, and then, when all the wondrous work was done inside, it blooms, comes out to take breath from air, be warmed by the sun, and fly to new heights and in new directions with a greater perspective on life. That is what life can be like for those who are single or single again. The Lord holds a special place for the women who can only rely on Him to fulfill our needs for a husband. He has special and unique ways to reveal that to us. It is my hope that this new site will inspire women (even lonely married women) to know Him in ways like never before and we can sore on wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31) or like the butterfly who knows the experience of new life!

A Glance Behind, a Peek Ahead

2009-08-26T03:30:00.000-07:00

Today's pics are from my daughter's graduation from college (right) and my trip to WV to visit friends (left).

I can hardly believe it's almost a year since Vinnie passed away, just shy three days. So much has happened in this year, and so much is changing. I find myself reflective and thinking about the best days of my whole life - when we were a young family. I still miss Saturday family days. Every Saturday was a special day to go somewhere and do something special as a family. The girls were sweet. We were a sweet family. As the years rolled on, life brought many challenges, and the girls got older and starting finding their own way in life, Vinnie and I thought about what the years ahead would hold for us. We had dreams of buying an RV and driving all over America and Canada sight seeing and doing some kind of ministry with kids on weekends at churches, bringing the Gospel to families through art and games and songs. We thought about bringing our grand children to Disney. We had many ideas. None will come to pass.

Now, I am considering school, working but praying for a better paying job, one that fulfills my passions, and trying to fit time in for visits with my kids and grand children. My evenings are no longer filled with old movies and dreaming with my hubbie. Now they are filled with conversations with girlfriends on FaceBook, Skype and emails. And there's the option of school. I didn't finish very much college when I was younger. Recently I was accepted at the college at Southeastern Theological Baptist Seminary but I can't afford to go without scholarships. I got accepted so late in the summer that I can't get scholarships now so I won't be able to go until next fall! So now I am looking into other college options. The bottom line is that I am not a wife and Mommy anymore. I'm single and support myself. There's no retirement, no Social Security (like there used to be for widows years ago). I've got to create some kind of work that will support me for the rest of my life. I won't survive on the income of a "second job" for much longer! Work was just a second job all these years. Now it is my sole source of income.

I believe God is directing my path and that I will be more and more involved in women's ministry, most specifically, widow ministry. I am hosting/leading a retreat for widows in October that I am calling, Widows Peek (thus part of the title of this blog post). The retreat is the result of asking God why He was bringing so many widows in my life - and so many of them feeling like me and asking, "How do you want to use me, Lord?" As I asked Him, I began also asking, "How do you want to use us?" I thought it would be helpful to provide a time and place where we could meet for prayer and reflection, sharing and rest. Such a provision became available! so far 9 widows from this area and as far west as TN and as far south as FL are coming!

So in October I hope that God will reveal the next step in His plan for my life. And I keep looking ahead hoping that there is purpose and fullfilment in each step. I just don't want to go on without making a difference in people's lives. I can't see any other reason to be alive. Yet, I also can't stop glancing back over my shoulder too - thanking God that He gave the first half of my adult life such purpose, fullfullment and joy. I am so blessed to have been married to a man so full of life with such a servant heart. I am so blessed to have sweet memories of my little girls and sweet times as a family. I am so blessed to know the Lord who lives in me and has used all things in my life for my good and His glory. And I am blessed that God will continue to use me, a wretched, good for nothing sinner, a loser without Him, to give Him glory in the days and years ahead. Only God of the Universe can do that through someone like me. It is my joy to be a vessel for His redemptive work on earth. I live on.

Widows Peek Retreat

2009-08-13T06:16:00.000-07:00

If you've read any part of my blog (which is an ongoing story written since October 2008 to now, I've met dozens of widows! I thought I would meet one or two around my age after Vinnie died, so I have been surprised to meet so many in such a short time. Many of these women have expressed a desire to minister to other widows in a variety of ways or are looking for ways to help. Many of them are already GriefShare leaders and/or facilitators but are open to God using them in other ways too.

After many months of prayer and sensing God was up to 'something', I am marching forward in faith to put together a retreat for widowed women who feel compelled to minister to other widowed women. The retreat, being held the weekend of Oct 9-10-11, 2009 just north of Raleigh, NC just north of the Virginia border will be a time of worship, fellowship, prayer, rest, reflections in God's Word and an opportunity to learn about what other ministries for widows already exist. It is our hope to build a strong fellowship and network of widows involved or who desire to be involved in ministry for widows, to learn about what others are doing, and to express the areas they see are a wide spread need.

Though space is limited (no more than a total of 17) for this weekend, we want to see every woman with input or willingness to share to join us! To learn more about the retreat, comment in this post and I will be happy to contact you and send more information. If you cannot attend but wish to be on a team who will pray for this team and our weekend together, let me know that in the comment section and I'll be happy to send prayer requests as we approach the retreat weekend.

Fearless Living

2009-07-28T17:31:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics of my home decorating. I've even gotten fearless about making changes in decor! (Thanks to all kind of help!) Don't you love when it becomes clear that the Lord has a message for you...like when you see the message all over the place? The message for me this week has been "Be fearless". One devotional I read said to have fear is to be disobedient to what God is directing you to do - that would be the opposite of fearlessness. I didn't understand at first how fear went side by side with disobedience until I asked the Lord to show me the relation they had to one another and it hit me! When we sense the Lord is leading us to do something or to make a certain decision or change directions - whatever it is, and we don't do it, it is disobedience and it's because of fear. What do we fear? Perhaps that we aren't good enough, smart enough, trained enough. Perhaps it's that we are afraid to fail or afraid we aren't hearing God right and we'll make a fool of ourselves. Maybe it's because we don't think we can afford to do it - financially or emotionally. But here's the end result - fear equals disobedience. Fear is a like a road block between us and God, our choices and His will.

So...what if I'm wrong about what I think He telling me? Can I trust Him that He'll lead me rightly if I am truly praying and doing something out of obedience? He looks upon the heart and He loves an obedient heart. That's all we need to care about. So how does this play a part in this season of my life? I need not be afraid of the journey I believe God's taking me on. I am pursuing a change in careers and will start my own business. It may turn out to be a part time business on the side. It might turn out to be astronomically successful. I don't know but I'm pursuing it fearlessly and trusting Him with the whole thing. I am going to be a Christian Life Coach and I'm going to specialize in coaching widows to rebuild their lives after the death of their husbands. I am so excited that God has lead me to this point. He's lead me to people who are in this field - a field that until two months ago I didn't even know existed. He lead me to a wonderful Christian training program. He's even lead me to people that will probably refer clients to me. God is so good.

I have big dreams and there's more to the dreams than the little I've told here but if they don't come true it doesn't matter to me. What matters is that after many, many months of trying to discern what God's been directing me to do in my life, I believe I've received the most direction now than ever before. Everything makes sense now and it all fits together. And...I'm just being obedient to what I believe he's telling me to do. What if I'm wrong? What if I fail? I believe God will keep redirecting me and I won't fail because even if the path doesn't go as planned (my plan) something good will come from it (Romans 8:28).

So what's this mean for you, the reader? I believe we are fearful. We think we can't. We think we're aren't ______ (fill in the blank). We are more willing to believe lies and hear them, and justify them than we are willing to believe that God is bigger than us and wants to do God sized things in us. I want to be part of a big plan, a big effective work of God's. I want to be used by God and I want others to see God in my life. It's not going to happen if I second guess Him. It's not going to happen if I think "I can't". Maybe it's true that "I" can't but He can and will if I let Him. It seems I am living a whole new way, thinking a whole new way. No longer am I holding back and being afraid of failure or of myself. For you...ponder these things and live without fear!

A Generous Family

2009-07-04T05:32:00.000-07:00

If you have read any of the stories on this blog site, you probably know that I have two daughters, a step daughter, three grandchildren, five step grandchildren, a sister who lives nearby (and one that lives a few hours away), and my mother. I have other relatives of course, but they are distant and I don't see them much. But...I also have a great BIG family in Christ!

I do remember a time when our church was going through several transitions and Vinnie and I, like many others, considered if God had a plan for us to worship in another church. Mind you, the thought took less than a minute to decide but still, we did give it a thought. One of Vinnie's responses at the time was something like, "If something ever happened to me, I know there'd be a lot of people in our church family that would take care of you." He was right! The love of family in our church gave him great comfort then, and now they comfort me.

Let me tell you what an awesome church family I have. Most of them are people young enough to be my own children, and many of them whom I wouldn't have even known if it weren't for the news of my losses last year. There are a number of young mothers who invited me to join their freezer swap group when they heard that I was eating weird 'meals' because I found it difficult to cook for myself. There's a young man who comes to cut my lawn every single week. Another has come and done free electrical work for me. Others have helped me move things from storage to my new house in the process of sorting and eliminating things I no longer need to keep. One has been cutting the grass at my old house while it was on the market (he is buying the house now! Yeah!). He has also offered to install wood flooring that Vinnie bought for me over a year ago, into my new house. One is coming to chop up large brush that takes over the perimeter of my yard, and one large Bible study group in the church is coming over to do at least a dozen home improvement projects around my house next week!

Why are so many willing to all this for me? It's not that I deserve any of it! It's not like I am a great person that people flock to. It's more than that. First, it comes from a desire to help those who are needy and many know that my life this year has required many, many changes and adjustments (emotionally needy). Second, I believe it is a return for the many generous acts of kindness Vinnie bestowed on many people in our church and community while he was alive. Third, there are men in the church that can assume that there would be things I'd need to have done in my home now that I that I don't have any men in my life to help me. And fourth, it comes from passages in Scripture about God's people taking care of widows.

With all the things I've written about on this blog site, it must be said that I don't even know where I'd be without this great big, HUGE family that God has placed me in the middle of. I am humbled and though it's not being special in any way that makes them do these things for me, I feel pretty special all the same. I may have many things to still adjust to in this new season of life, but I don't think I'd have made it this far, and this well, without any one of these loving Believing family members! I love them to pieces!

A Dead Truck

2009-06-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

Here's Vinnie's red pick up. He always wanted a truck like this one and he got to own it for a few months before he went Home.

I will soon be closing on the house that Vinnie and I lived in for almost three years before he died. I didn't particularly like living there. It was a blessing at the time we bought it and I was in love with the dream we had to build a dream home there and eventually buy out the land next door to create a lovely haven with a plenty of room for the whole family and plenty of friends to come spent time with us there. The dream never happened and I put the place up for sale. The home and property were too much for me to take care of anyway.

Last weekend Vinnie's truck broke down. I could tell it was the engine. I am not sure why the engine went out; the truck only had 145,000 miles on it and it had plenty of oil which was not ready to be changed. But it seemed to me like it was a message to me that I needed to give up everything that was Vinnie's. Once the sale of the house closes, I'll have nothing but ashes, an American flag and a lot of pictures that are of Vinnie. Everything else is gone - a reminder that I am in a new season of life and am living it by myself.

It's bittersweet. The truck needed a lot of work and so did my Buick. My budget to fix and maintain the two cars was almost as much as my new car payment! I know this is Vinnie would be proud of me for the decisions I've made (most of them anyway - he'd probably cringe at the way I do my bookkeeping!) but he's not here to say, "Great job, Gailie!" I wish I could hear him talk to me at times - I miss his encouragement and having someone to dream with. But I am not going to hear his voice again and I doubt that when I hear it in heaven that he will still have that romantic little Italian accent I used to make fun of. Funny, I would so love to hear it again.

I am still searching for my "own" in this new season of life. I would so love to be in business for myself, a business that is also a ministry of some kind. This is a subject of prayer and I'm also hoping to attend the college at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in the fall of this year. It is my hope that God will continue to shape this new dream (old dream with a new twist - I'm doing it alone). If I am to be alone for the rest of my life, I at least want to pour my life into something that truly allows me to do what I'm most passionate about.

Yesterday was Father's Day and I didn't think it was a day that would become emotional for me but it was. I didn't think until later in the day, but next year I'm going to act on an idea that came to me before I went to bed last night. I'm going to find some other people who have lost their dad and/or women who have lost their husbands, and go visit men in hospitals or nursing homes who would be encouraged to have company. Perhaps we can share the good news of Jesus who opened the way for us to know our Perfect Father in heaven. Now that is a great new normal!

Happy Anniversary

2009-05-31T15:04:00.001-07:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again...grief is a weird journey! Unlike other kinds of suffering, and I've had my plate full of them in life, it's a state of suffering that fades in and out at different times. For instance, I am approaching what would be my 26th wedding anniversary with Vinnie and sadness is already hitting me again.

My youngest daughter got married on our 25th. Vinnie and I renewed our vows and incorporated that into the beginning of their wedding ceremony. It was a precious event. But even though Vinnie and I vowed "to keep our promises to each other for as long as God would have us be together", we both knew deep down in our hearts that the amount of time we'd still have together on earth would be shorter than we'd hoped. It was! We would only have 7 weeks left. The anniversary date will be harder to face and more emotion to deal with than I was expecting. It is still but a week away but it's already getting tough.

This past weekend I went to the beach with my sister. Vinnie and I loved the beach and always planned a trip around the time of our anniversary. There were few moments this weekend that I didn't miss him. Our time away was always opportunity to have conversations that included more than, "What's for dinner?" and "What movie are we watching tonight?". And though I totally loved being with my sister, he was missed this weekend. I am still surprised that when I seem so "OK" with life as it now is, it will take an event like the beach or our anniversary date to turn the sad stone back over again.

I have no clue how long these sudden bursts of sadness will hit me. The recent bouts of sadness that have hit me have been when Shelly graduated from college a few weeks ago, when Amy got a job in her first level of nursing assistance at Duke, the hospital of her dream, the trip to the beach and now our anniversary approaches. It will probably hit me again when Shelly and Chris buy their first house, a deal which will close in a few weeks. My hope is that the year of "firsts" (first Christmas without him, first birthday without him, etc.) will be the hardest and that after that those dates will get a little easier to bear and less sad as each year comes and goes and new traditions are created. Of course I can only guess since I've never been down this road before. I imagine, however, that it will be hard when other firsts come too, like when Shelly and Chris have their first baby and other graduations happen, etc.

Grief is weird. When I've had trouble with a relationship, it always came to a conclusion and the problem was over. If I'd had trouble with a job, or finances, there'd come a time when it would come to a conclusion and some kind of answer would rear it's head in resolve. But grief, it strikes when your going along feeling fine and enjoying something that's in the flow of the day or week or year and suddenly - boom! Grief hits again like ton of bricks. It seems to get easier but not less sad.

When I got home after spending the whole weekend with my sister, I realized that I'd loved having someone to talk to all day, for two whole days! I miss that so much! I never get anyone to myself anymore and I spend many, many hours alone at home. I am not sure I'll ever get over that! It simply compounded the sadness I've already been feeling but sadness is just an emotion. Sadness over Vinnie's absence is simply a sign of the fact that I loved him very much. I have to keep all this in perspective. It's the only way I'm going to survive. So...I'm off now to go hang a new picture I bought to put up over my kitchen window. I wish it was Vinnie putting it up but it never will be him doing it again and that's going to become more and more OK with me in time, I am sure.

Strong or faith and confidence?

2009-05-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

This is my youngest daughter, Shelly, graduate of UNCG in Psychology. My other daughter is pursuing a nursing degree, and my step daughter has a degree in early childhood. I am very proud of them. Can you tell?

I have sometimes been told that I am 'so strong'. I was thinking about that today and here's the truth of the matter. I am not strong, well not in the sense that I've thought of people being strong in the past. I think of a 'strong' person who doesn't have a relationship with Christ as one who is a bit tough, hard, and so focused on something that there are no distractions that would bring laughter, crying, or emotion of any kind. THAT does not describe me. I laugh, cry, and am not afraid to experience any emotion or talk about it with others. I don't know that strong is the right word...I am not tough, hard or callus. I'm wondering if it's more that I am confident. I am confident. Oh, not in myself, believe me, but I am confident in who God is. I am confident of who I am in Christ. I am confident that if I pray for something and it doesn't come to pass, that I am the one who didn't get it right, not God, or His timing is better than mine and I need to pay attention.

I know that people think I am strong because I can laugh and live and carry on now that Vinnie is gone. I love Vinnie and miss him so much but I know he and our Heavenly Father want me to live. This is where I live. I don't usually know what I am doing but I do know that even if I haven't figured it out, God is always doing something and I am sure, because He is good and He is love, that He knows what is best for me and what will most glorify Him and prove that He is exactly who He says He is and always will be. That is what I am confident in and hope to get more and more confident in that until I can go Home. I can't imagine living any other way!

The Word of God (Scripture)

2009-05-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

In all of the ways I've mentioned this week that God speaks, I left the best for last. God speaks to us all the time in His Word. I remember the first time it happened to me. My step daughter was living with us at the time. I had only been a Believer a year and had recently gotten a study Bible which I read often with fascination to have explanations for most of the passages.

My step daughter was a bit of a argumentative person - OK...she was ALWAYS arguing with Vinnie and me, and teachers, her siblings - EVERYONE! One day while being totally rebellious and yes, arguing with me, I said something like, "You know, you argue with us because you just don't get what you want. We would all have a happier life here together if you'd stop insisting everything would go your way and insisting you get whatever it is YOU want as if you were only important one here!" She stormed of to her room.

A little while later I went up to my room and opened my Bible on my bed. When I picked it up turn to the pages I had been reading before bed that week, I saw a passage that got me SO EXCITED! It was the passage from James 4:1-3. " ¹What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? ²You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. ³When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

I ran right over to her room and knocked on the door with excitement. I wanted her to know that my revelation (yes, it seems obvious now, but at the time it was a revelation - why we argue!) It was so exciting to show her the wisdom in the Bible (she was not a Believer then).

There are countless times when I would see a passage that would be an obvious clear direction or answer to a problem or a question. There have been times when in one day the same verse would be unexpectedly seen over and over again in different places - the radio, on a web page, a poster, you name it. Vinnie and I would get so excited when things like that would happen!

of all the passages in the Bible, isn't amazing that God would orchestrate our day to put us in the view of the same passage in various places all day when He has a specific message He wants to drive home that day? It's amazing. No one can tell me that my God is not personal and real! It's just too many times, too most interesting and unexpected ways and times He's spoken. I love it and it still amazes me.

I have been realizing this week that I am often times competitive and jealous of others. I can't say I really was so vividly aware of this as I am tonight. I guess this is one more layer, one more way I've kept my eyes off Jesus...yearning for what others have (a relationship, career, comfort, Godly children, a clear call from God on their life, you name it!). Once again, God is showing me that He just wants me to be thankful, content and fulfilled knowing that my ultimate purpose on earth is to enjoy His presence and His relationship with me. It will come as I listen to His side of the conversation - to hear what things He wants to tell me. He's got better things to say to me than all I can drum up to say to Him anyway...so I am sharpening up my eyes and ears to hear Him some more!

Clouds That Speak - (sort of)

2009-05-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

Here's my little grandson. He's as cute as that teddy!

I told you I had a funny story to tell of a way God spoke to me once. It actually happened last night! I was driving home after having dinner with my daughter and her family. The wind started to really kick in and dark ugly storm clouds were taking over the sunset. Rain began to pound the windshield when I decided to go home before the storm got worse. I was a bit nervous that I'd have trouble controlling the car in the high winds or I'd lose visibility and have to pull over in the dark and wait to see.

I prayed a short prayer of sorts to get home safely. As I started driving on the Interstate, I realized that it was raining in sections of the highway. It would be really heavy and then seconds later, it was light drizzle. In fact, after about 5 minutes on the Interstate, there were breaks in the dark clouds and streaks of blue sky were visible in between. I suddenly saw the funniest thing - a cloud formation that very vividly shaped a hand giving an "OK" sign. I wish I'd had my camera. You would not believe how perfect it was! There were three folding finger shapes, a palm, and an index finger folded roundly to meet a rounded thumb to shape a perfect "OK". I laughed and laughed and thanked God for giving me a sign that I'd be OK. A few minutes later I was driving in sunshine again. When I got home there were signs of having come after some pretty heavy rains. There were large chunks of tree branches lined up in front of the house too so it must have been a pretty heavy storm. But God had me travel in the pockets of the storm that were safe over my car. Isn't God amazing?!

Tell Him What's On Your Mind!

2009-05-10T18:03:00.000-07:00

I know the topic this week is on ways God has spoken to me (and I have a funny one on the next post!) but today I must write about something important - a message to young brides.

I was recently dining with a family - a darling, lovable young couple. There was a bit of tension a few times when the little wife got annoyed with her partner. After having a discussion about it later, she told me she was annoyed because he was talking away, entertaining the guests (which included me but she insisted guests were not to help) and not helping her serve, get things, pour drinks, put food away, and other tasks that arose before, during, and after dinner.

Here's the thing gals...there are things that our husbands might assume would come natural to us...but they go over our heads. And girls...your guy may just not get what you were expecting or what you want. It is always better to say, "Hey want to have so and so over for dinner Friday?" When he says, yeah, we can ....(he may fill in some activity he wants to include in the evening). Then, you say, "Will you help with dinner? Will you help me serve our guests? Will you help me clear the table after dinner? Will you help with dishes? do you want to clean up as we go or do it all after they leave? You'll help me right?"

Girls...let them know what you want or you are hoping for! I used to just tell Vinnie that when I hadn't gotten flowers in awhile, he could feel free to surprise me one night with some or I'd like to go on a date. I'd ask him if he could think of something he'd like to do on a date (to give him some creative ideas) but sometimes I'd say, "I'm in the mood to go do....(whatever). He SO appreciated that I figured out eventually that it was better to not make him guess. As often as possible, tell him exactly what is on your mind. There'll me less frustration and you will know ahead of time if it's worth taking on a task or not!

Happy marriages to you!

A Loud Whisper of Sorts

2009-05-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

I promised to write about the other way God has spoken to me in the past. It is not that I want anyone to think I am special. I simply want others to know that God does speak to His people. When I first started to "hear" God's whispering words, it seemed liked sudden thoughts that came to me from out of the blue. I heard one pastor once say that it is like a bubbling up of spring water, not a constant flow like a river. It is the very way I 'heard' God speak to me when I became a Believer. Now, I have had the encounter several times and what I thought might have been God proved to have been God, so I find I am more confident these days when it is from God. Mind you, there are plenty of times when I am not sure God is speaking and it requires a lot of prayer, a watchful eye, and a humbleness to recognize that my 'listening' may be entangled and therefore distorted with my own human nature. Let me explain though, how I've heard form God in the past.

The day I became a Believer I was in a church service. It happened during the worship time. I looked around the room and wept. I saw all these people singing to God with sincere, wholehearted love. It was overwhelming and beautiful. In my consumption of emotion, I 'heard' a voice in my mind that said, "Look back on your life. Think on all the times when you almost died. I suddenly remembered the two times I tried to commit suicide as a little girl. God said, "I am the One who sent someone in the room to rescue you." I thought of the car accident that nearly killed me. I heard, "I am the One who kept you from being thrown from that car." Then the "whisper" reminded me of the three times I was almost raped. The 'voice' said, "I am the One who suddenly brought others into the picture to intervene." Then I 'heard", I let you stray to the right and the left of the path I have for your life but those times when you got too far off, I am the One who pushed you back on the road. I did all this to bring you to today. But starting today, you will no longer be allowed to stray. I have things I want you to do and since you have always belonged to me, you must now seek what are the things I want to do in your life."

I thought about running away at this point, but heard the 'voice' again. "You can run wherever you want, but you will always be tucked away in the hem of my robe and therefore you can never really escape me. I am the One who put the hole in your heart as a little girl - a hole that has made you yearn for love, the love you wanted from a perfect Daddy. I am that perfect Daddy. I want to fill your hole with my love. I wanted you to know me, that I am your perfect Daddy."

Does this all seem crazy? I really can't explain it any other way. I 'heard' this voice in my mind. It was kind of like dreaming, only to the best of my recollection, I was awake. I mean I was still sitting through the service that morning and I left a new person. I 'heard' this voice a few other times too. One time was actually before I became a Believer. It was in a service at an Episcopal church (where we used to attend, reluctantly). A woman priest came to give the service that day. I'd never heard of a woman priest before. I thought it was ridiculous until I heard her sermon! I not only heard her sermon, but I heard a voice in my head that said, "You will do this some day!" The only reason I didn't pursue a career as a priest at that point was that my husband thought I was nuts!

I heard the same message when I attended a Women of Faith conference about a year after I became a Believer. As I listened to women speaking, I also heard a 'voice' telling me that one day I'd be doing what they were doing - speaking and sharing God's story in my life and being an encouragement of faith to other women. And...I heard the voice again one other very distinct time.

I had become quite involved in a Children's Church program we'd started for our grade school children at our church. At the end of one year in this program, a friend and myself were praying about what to teach the following year. We felt like God wanted us to teach the names of God and I was led to a new curriculum written and published through the Bethlehem Baptist Church where John Piper pastors and went to a workshop to learn more about it.

As I sat though the workshops, I would hear all these really awesome ideas and concepts about teaching the children the Word of God. I would again 'hear' this voice. The voice kept saying, "Well, when you run Children's Ministry, you can do it that way too." I heard it over and over again, and remember thinking, "why do I keep hearing that?! There is already a pastor over the children and even if he wasn't there, I am not a pastor. Why would it seem like God is telling me that I would run things? I'd never become a pastor." It was so confusing!

Little did I know that the children's pastor would step down two months later! the 'voice' came to me many times, "Go tell your pastor God wants you take over." It seemed so ridiculous that it took three months of just not standing it anymore before I finally got the nerve to tell our pastor. The results (and I'm skipping a lot of detail here - perhaps for another blog)...I was children's minister at our church for 3 1/2 years! I was certain at that point, that God does in fact still speak to His people! I can't go on, although I could, but it's a blog, not a book. Perhaps tomorrow I'll tell you about that journey in Children's Ministry!

When God Has Spoken...

2009-05-06T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today's pics are of my youth. The top two are right after my senior year. That was my step dad's Camaro, not mine. And check out those fabulous (NOT) short dresses and scarves! Whohoo. Fashion is hilarious!

I have had the strangest things that have come to mind at times. It has seemed so strange and out of the blue that I could only conclude at the time that it was God or the Holy Spirit that brought those things to mind. Over time they have proved to be true. I was telling a friend this the other day and she asked if I have kep a journal of these events. Truth is, they are not specifically documented so I thought I would doc them today on my blog.

A few times I've had strange sudden mathematical/numerical things pop into my head from seeming out of no where. One such time was when one of my grandsons was born. My daughter had him at 18. She'd gotten pregnant at 17 we extended grace and hoped that good would come out of it for her and all of us. When I was holding that little gorgeous baby boy it suddenly dawned on me that if you go back one month from his birthday, May 23, and add three days, you get his mother's birthday, April 26. If you go ahead a month and subtract 3 days you get June 20 which is my step daughter's first son. If you go ahead one more month and subtract 3 days, you get my youngest daughter's birthday, July 17. Now that might all seem complicated, but it all came to me in a flash moment and was clear and simple as day and night. My next feeling was that God wanted me to know that He is aware of all the details of our lives, He is Sovereign over ever detail, and He wanted to assure me that He would care for this little one and the rest of our family.

The next time He spoke to me in numbers was back in March of last year. Vinnie was still recovering from his second surgery when his kidney, prostate, bladder and some lymph nodes were removed. He was still sore but he was getting better and we were hopeful. However, in March one day during a church service, it suddenly dawned on, from out of the blue, that I was born in 1956 and Vinnie was born in 1951 and that while he was still still 56 and I was still 51 he would die. That immediately made me think that he wasn't going to make it and would die in August, right before my 52 birthday. He died one week before my 52 birthday.

These are two numerical ways I can remember that God 'spoke' to me. Tomorrow I'll tell you about how He literally spoke to me on a number of occasions. My purpose? I want people to know that I am not special. What I mean is that while I am a child of God and that is pretty darn special, there are also many other children of God, many who are a lot more special than me! Yet, God still speaks to His people, even in this modern times. If we pray for ears and wisdom to discern then when we absolutely don't expect it - god may speak to us. Be alert. Be confident in teh ways he may communicate to us directly. Come back tomorrow!

How Still Can I Be?

2009-04-29T19:23:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos of my days as a chef/baker/caterer. Always busy...always creating things.

God sure does want me to slow down! I think I have and He seems to indicate in many more ways, that I am just not still enough! I never thought of myself as an active person, probably because I hate exercise so much (but I do do it), but in fact, God is showing me just how active I have been! I am not comfortable being still. And so what do you think God is calling me to do now? Be still! Be stiller than that! And even stiller than that!

In my recent study, it was pointed out that Abraham was told to do something initially - to "go to a land I will show you." That was it at first, wasn't it? He didn't hear all the details from God. He heard the detail he needed for now. The same is true of Moses. He was told to go back to Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let His people go. Moses didn't know about the Red Sea which was magnificent wonder from God. He didn't need to know about that until it was time - God's time.

It's the same for you and the same for me. God isn't any different now than He was then. And as I understand it with my mind, my heart doesn't like it one bit, or I am so used to living in a fashion that has to know all the details so I can get out there and get the job done, that I slip up even without knowing I'm doing it! ugh. but thank god for accountability. I have a friend who keeps telling me - "stay focused!" I need her to do that right now. I am distracted without even knowing I am.

So will the Grief Center happen? I believe so. Will I be given some ministry to do in the area of Grief? I believe I will? Will god use me to lead others to Christ? I believe He will. Why? Because I've experienced the proof that God has spoken to me in certain ways before and they came to pass. He has spoken these things to me over the past several months and I am confident of that. He's already shown me His unique way that He speaks to me. How it will happen? When? Where? How far into the future will it all happen? Will it be all at once? I have no idea!!! (I am sharing here the chaotic thoughts of this mind of mine that doesn't want to sit still!) The answer? I know what I need to do today! That's all. He gives me all the direction I need for this day to glorify Him and fulfill His will. If I am graveling to get to tomorrow, I will miss what how He wants to use me today!

The same is true of you! Join me in being still! Wait, watch, listen. that's my new Sunday school answer - you know the one that is save to give to every question? Yup...join in me in the mission god has given us - to enjoy the love relationship He wants to have with us. THAT is more important to Him than what we might accomplish so that is what we do while we wait. Keep reminding me of this!

Moldable and Teachable

2009-04-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

In all my wrestling with God these past few months in a quest to understand this overwhelming passion to know what and where God is driving me to in this new season of life He's put me in, I have come to a wonderful revelation tonight. I've searched in all the places I am confident I could take on if He'd give it over to me. I have sort of been saying, "Lord, here am I; tell me whatever it is you want me to." That sort of sounds right, doesn't it? But my heart has meant - "I have walked a long and hard journey with you, Lord, and I am ready to take on whatever you have for me so bring it on, I can handle it, I can do it."

Tonight it dawned on me that He still wants me to be a pupil. I am still supposed to be the student while He is teacher. In fact, looking back in time, everytime He used me in one way, He first trained me. I didn't realize it until tonight but I've arrogantly been believing I'd learned enough to "get on with it"! Wow...there's some arrogance for you. But I'm not ashamed of that because I know others must go "there" too. It's part of our human nature. No. I am just so thankful for God's grace that He waited for me to see what has to happen next. I heard Pastor Yohannan of India recently say that people are often times blaming the enemy, the devil for their greatest downfalls when in fact, our biggest enemy and cause of downfall is our self centeredness! How true! I must be taught, trained and molded. He still wants to be the potter and He still wants me to be His clay. Self centered people can't be molded or taught anything!

I am so excited about this revelation, though it sounds simple. I know it may hurt a bit - think about being pushed, poked, smooshed, squeezed, spun around and around and even have pieces carved out of you. That's what God wants to do to us and I am excited about that! I am so relieved to understand where He wants me - mold-able and teachable. I'm content with that, and I better be because I'll always be there. God will keep molding me until I go Home! I'll keep you posted as to where my training takes me. Stay tuned to the journey of this little woman (well I hope to be eventually) who is trying to discern the path God has for her now in this season of her life, and as God reveals the path to her, one tiny step at a time.

Asking The Right Question?

2009-04-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

Today's pics are of my grand children at Easter. I know Easter is not all about egg hunts but they are so much fun and when else would you do them? We are having a blast watching them find the eggs.

I am studying "Experiencing God" by Henry Blackaby and Claude King (for the 4th time!) but there's always so much to gleam from this study! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the men who wrote this study DO experience God in ways I still desire.

Being a widow after being married for so long is weird because you want to move forward in life but don't know what life is supposed to look like so I jumped on the opportunity to join a group of women to do this study again. I've been very aware of my desire to understand God's will for my life and the lessons are hitting that question right between the eyes! Here's a statement from day 2 from unit 1. "Always check to see if you have asked the right question before you pursue the answer. 'What is God's will for my life?' - is not the right question. I think the right question is, 'What is God's will?' " He follows up the meaning of this statement by pointing out the story of Moses. The question is not, 'What was God's will for Moses', but rather, 'What was God's will for Isreal?'.

As I reflect deeply on these statements and questions, I find myself now asking, "What are you doing around me?" "What is your will for those around me?" I like the statement made in day 3 (of unit 1). "We are a doing people. We always want to be doing something. Once in awhile someone will say, 'Don't just stand there. Do something'. I think God is crying out to us, 'Don't just do something. Stand there!' " I don't think I ever noticed that statement in the study before!

I do declare! Do these men know me? God sure made it clear to them that He heard the cry of many (like me) asking God to understand His will for each of us and used these men to deliver us the answer! I can picture myself going up on the mountain for 40 days while others wonder what on earth I am doing. Perhaps people would say (if anyone were looking, which they aren't - ha ha), "She never accomplished anything before and sitting up there on that mountain, she sure isn't going to accomplish anything for the rest of her life if she doesn't get going! She's already 52. What is she waiting for?"

That is really me asking this of myself, or at least I have been feeling that way. I think I've been wanting to show God that I am ready so go ahead and get on with "it". "Hey god, can't you see I am 52 and if I am going to do anything more than work for a place to live, I will need to get going!" But I am realizing that I will never see what God's doing around me unless I stop looking at myself and go join Him on the mountain first. Isn't that where Moses met God before He understood how God wanted to use him in God's plan? I want Him to show me His heart for all those He's looking at, listening to and loving on. I want to join Him in having His heart for everyone of them. I know that if I'd simply enjoy spending time with Him and getting to know His heart, He will give me a task to do and show me how, when and where to jump on board. I've always wanted a mentor - I've had one all along - my Heavenly Father! Would you pray for me? Pray that I will be like clay and allow him to mold me to be just like Him, to see what His desire is for His people, to have His heart and to fall in love with what He wants to do or is already doing around me!

Falling In Love

2009-04-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

I don't know about any of you fabulous women reading this blog, but when I was young, the idea of falling in love, getting married and having babies one day was absolutely overwhelming at times. And when I dated anyone that I thought might be "it" it was all over for me. I was a complete mess. I couldn't think, drink, eat, sleep, talk, work, walk, or do anything without thinking of my love. Looking back, after kids, and years of hard work, it seems like it never happened that I was so "out to lunch" but I was.

As I've thought about how God wants to fill the holes in my heart (see yesterday's post) I've had to ask myself why I am not swooning as dumbfounded over the One who wants to be the perfect love of my life. Is it because He's invisible, is it because He isn't physically felt when He wraps His arms around us or hides us in the shadow of His wing? (Psalm 17:8, Psalm 36:7, Psalm 57:1, Psalm 63:7) Is it because He can't literally be heard to human naked ear? It doesn't matter the answer - it's probably a different answer for every one or every season. Here's the point - He longs for us to know Him intimately and to be the one we love above all else - ALL else!

I am attempting to understand how He wants to and can fill these needs in my heart so that I not only say, "I love the Lord my God" but I can say, "I love the Lord my God with all that I am and above all other things and people I have ever loved." If I ever figure it all out, I'll share it with you - but as I understand or experience it in bits and pieces, I'll share that too.

Be blessed and ask God how you can also be a blessing to others....

Finding Joy, Peace and Fulfullment

2009-04-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

(These are pics of when I was a little girl. The littler girl is my sister Nance; the man is one of my step dad's brothers.)

When I was a little girl, I lived with a step father who was mean to me. I was scared to death of him and often did things that physically hurt me but I didn't physically feel it. I had a bad habit of biting my nails and cuticles (even though I got spanked pretty bad for it on a number of occasions). I remember one season of my life when my parents noticed that the skin on the pads of my fingers were raw. They asked me what I'd been doing or what chemicals I got into the basement that would have eaten the flesh off my fingertips like that. I had no clue. They even took me to the doctor and the doctor had no idea. Looking back, it fit the trend I had in other things but I lived in such a cloud of fear and sadness that I didn't pay any attention to things I did because of it, things that hurt me. It became clear to me once when watching a puppy chew the wound of it's paw; it had to hurt. But I realized I had done the same thing. I would gnaw of my nails and cuticles and tear the skin off my fingers without even realizing it. The pain in my heart was greater than physical pain. Besides, numbness became an element of some kind of survival.

I am sorry to be so graphic, and I won't go into the detail of other things I did to my self as a kid, including three attempts to kill myself (a kid's version). At age 10, though, I was given some hope - or so I thought. I found out this man who beat me, threw me around the room, spanked me until my bottom was raw, and even almost killed my mother (at least once that I know of) was not even my real dad! The hope this gave me was that there was a daddy 'out there' that was going to be a perfect daddy, who would love me, hug me, tell me I was a good girl, a pretty girl, a smart girl (the lie I believed my whole life until I was in my 40's is that I was 'good for nothin'). I had the hope that one day I'd find my perfect daddy and he'd take me in his arms and love on me like a momma dog on a lost pup. (Let me add here, that I forgave my dad many years ago, even before I became a believer, and thanked him for things I had learned from him over the years. We reconciled before his death in the 1970's).

When I was thirteen I found out I had a brother. He came to visit us for a few weeks that year. During his stay, his (and my) dad replied to a letter my brother sent him. My dad's letter (which I found and read in secret) said that he didn't know he had another child but he was not interested in me. My hope was crushed!

When I became a Believer in Christ in 1994 at the age of 38, God spoke to my heart. He asked me to think about the hole I'd always felt I had in my heart. (It's hard to remember what that was like now-it was a very deep hole.) He also told me that He wanted to make sure that the hole would always make me wish for a perfect daddy so that when I came to that day in my life, a day pre-ordained by God Himself many, many years before, I'd know that HE was the PERFECT Daddy I'd always hoped for. HE was the hope I'd always wanted.

There's more to the story of my past and the story of my salvation, but as I sometimes hear people talk about loneliness, even in the midst of their own families and their own lives filled with a lot of people, I can't help but wonder what my life would be like now that I've lost my best buddy in the whole world, if God hadn't already shown me this basic truth (and is still teaching me). He wants to be the one to fill our heart. God has been teaching me for years that HE is the one who desires to fill up every single hole in my heart. Even though it still hurts at times, He wants to be there to fill every hole and be the very ultimate element that brings satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment in my life. There is not one person, no not one, who is not given the same opportunity to find joy, peace, and fulfillment in Him, the One who made each one of us. Giving ourselves to Him and trusting Him with our life instead of finding those experiences by obtaining more clothes, shoes, jewelry, a spouse, children, career, a bigger home, a dream vacation or whatever it might be (and I'd still love anyone of those things) truly is a deeper and more fruitful and fulfilling way to live - even when the dearest of those things are taken away from us. I praise God daily to know this awesome truth!
Here's a picture of my biological father and another sister. I met them both for the first time when I was 29 but we parted ways soon after until I became a Believer. Since then, they both have become Believers and my dad and I have reconciled.

The Death Manual

2009-03-08T15:27:00.000-07:00

So many times people have made funny little comments about the fact that babies don't come with manuals. Well, neither does widowhood! In fact, it seems as though there's more books on how to raise children, all kinds of children and all ages too, than there are books on how to make money and surely more than on dealing with death!

When I went to the funeral home a few weeks before Vinnie died and Vinnie and I decided with the funeral home and our pastor what we wanted done when Vinnie was gone, the funeral director told me that I'd need to get the deed to my house settled with the county for taxes and I'd need to do something or other with Social Services. But so much happened between that day and the day he died, and so much happened after that day that everything got so cloudy, I didn't remember what I was supposed to do or why or when, or any of that. I could have used a manual then!

And then, there's the new level of friendships - couples don't want to hang out with you anymore because three is a crowd, not a fun mix. And singles don't really consider you single. If I joined a widow group I'd probably be one of the youngest in the bunch and some might be in it to find a new spouse. Though a second income would sure help, I am not sure I want to start over again with someone. So there's this lull that lingers...where do I fit in, what am I supposed to do with myself.

Mind you, I have so much to do! It's taken me weeks to get all my tax stuff together for instance. ugh...I had a hard time figuring out where files are and remembering all the places I would find the papers I needed to get my taxes done. I hate that stuff! And Vinnie always did our taxes. I never gave them a thought except to ask when the checks were coming! So that's been another change. And as for friends...I have a lot of friends, but they are all busy with their families. Oh God, where do I fit in?

I must say, I do fit in well with my GriefShare group. I love that there are ladies in the group who have lost husbands and others who are experiencing the family fallout that hits like a tsunami after an earthquake after a significant family member dies. I am thankful for the questions that help me think through the losses I am experiencing from week to week because loss of a significant family member is not just a single loss, but layers and layers of losses. Many things can reveal those layers like the loss of a tax preparer which I didn't experience until January, or the loss of a handyman which I am experiencing now as I am trying to get tasks done in the home I am trying to sell. It is also helpful to look back and see the progress I've made since August 29. Sometimes it's easy to forget there's been more than a spinning of the wheels in one muddy pool.

I wish I could write a manual for other widows but we all travel the journey differently. One thing I could say though is to keep a journal along the way to look back and see the progress along the way. Yes, it may take a couple of years to recuperate from the loss of a spouse, but it will happen, it will. It's a tiring journey but we don't have to travel it alone. Telling others what I'm thinking, feeling, and experiencing also helps. It helps because it makes it less awkward for others to know how to relate to me and talk to me. I want people to know that they can talk about Vinnie and they haven't upset me if I cry sometimes. It's part of life on this side of Heaven, not a part I life very well, but one I think everyone will experience in one way or another in their lifetime. This being the case I cannot help but wonder why more people don't talk about it or that there isn't more teaching about it so we are a bit more prepared with what we might face if we lose a loved one. It doesn't have to be a manual but it would be nice to be a bit more prepared.

Lots and Lots of Grace

2009-03-03T18:48:00.001-08:00

I am awe struck tonight thinking about the amount of grace my Vinnie gave to me over the years. Can you see it in our last photo of each other here? I am so thankful that this picture was taken because this picture captures the grace we learned to have for each other. We drove each other crazy at times and we loved each other like crazy too.

This refreshing thought comes after another one those moments when I think twice about conversations that I've had with Vinnie. It is sometimes agonizing because I never got the chance to ask him if I understood him right, or he got what I meant, or if he agreed, or did he know I agreed with him...and the list of questions goes on. It's agonizing because now, there are no answers; there's no one to ask as I second guess the conversations of the past.

When Vinnie was sick, especially in the last month when dozens and dozens of people would come to see Vinnie, we never had the time I so badly wanted to have with him in the end. But here's the bottom line...I would never been able to think of every conversation we'd had in the past, I'd never be able to think of all the questions I have now. The reason? Because before he was gone, we understood the grace we had for each other. I didn't question past conversations. It's easier to question our past conversations now because he's not here to affirm his grace for me. It's just my questions and empty space.

But after shedding tears and begging both Vinnie and God to me being a wretch, for anything I did or said in the past that was stupid, mean, ugly, thoughtless or selfish, I am OK. That is when I remember his grace for me and mine for him.

I write this tonight because I know someone reading this now, or in many years from now, will be able to relate to what I'm saying. Let me encourage you, girls (and guys) to remind your spouse, without them even asking, that you love them, the real "them" and all the sin and bad stuff is just to be expected because we are sinners. Remind them that the bad stuff is gone, gone to hell where it belongs and you've let it go because you never know when you will suddenly rethink a conversation and it will be too late to ask about it. Have grace, lots and lots and lots of grace.

If you are married, have grace, lots of grace. Give it and ask for it. If you are single, practice having and giving lots of grace to every relationship you have with friends and family. The more you do it, the more you will be a pro at doing if you do get married. Grace - it's the crux of what allows us to have had our sin removed from us and put upon perfect our Jesus. Grace - it's the crux of what enables us to live with others peacefully and peacefully live when others have to leave us.

My Wonderful Home

2009-03-02T12:19:00.000-08:00

The pictures today are from my front and back porch (and one of my Vinnie shelf - do you see Vinnie's pic?). What a beautiful view I have here of God's beautiful and wondrous creation!

When Vinnie died I was renting an apartment which I quickly realized I couldn't afford. I guess I was so busy taking care of Vinnie and then feeling like I was just barely coming up for air everyday after that for awhile, that I hadn't paid much attention to finances. So when I found this great little house on the street behind my sister's neighborhood, I jumped on it. It's a perfect house for one (or maybe two or three if they are all tiny, but that's it!).

I never thought I'd mind being alone in a house and the first week here I really wasn't OK with it. But over time, I began to look forward to the safety and security of being here where I can spend time reading, listening to music, watching TV, sitting on my amazing screened in deck overlooking an acre of forest, or play on my computer (and of course, blog). I am also looking forward to doing things in the yard when the weather gets warmer. And in spite of this gorgeous snowy day, I am tired of being cold...so God, bring on the warm weather!!!

I LOVE spring. I love fall too because the cool air is refreshing after the intense heat and humidity we have around here 5 months of the year, and of course, fall is beautiful. But there is something about spring that gets me recharged. It reminds me of Christ because He came that we might be born again, becoming new creatures in Christ,
(2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!) and the season of spring is a perfect example of just that...everything coming back from the "dead" and being reborn. The sudden dashes of yellow daffodils, purple crocuses, pink azaleas and dogwoods, it's breathtaking. And if you watch real close, the leaves in the spring are a green like no other time of year - I call it "new life green".

That is what we are promised, a new life in Christ when we put our faith and trust in Him. When I became a Believer in 1994, I knew instinctively that my life would never be the same again. My past was wiped clean, white as snow and I was given the opportunity to live a new life (from white snow to new life green! Whahoo!. But like the leaves a week or so after being new life green, they just become regular old green and it easy to forget where I was before my new life - like dead of winter on a cold dark day going nowhere. I love the spring because it is a reminder of what Christ did for us on the cross - gave us the opportunity for a new life - one that will eventually lead us to Heaven where the sights and smells will not even compare to what we have here on this side of Heaven. Just thinking about it, even on this cold, wet day, makes me feel revived and "new green" all over again! And I am so blessed to see God's beauty through the windows of this lovely little home surrounded by it on all sides!

It Must Be Amazing

2009-03-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

Photos are of our wedding day, 7 years later, and at 24 years.

It is hard trying to figure out who I am now that Vinnie's gone. When we are married, we become one and after 25 years of marriage, tearing two who have become one apart is like taking the laminate layer off an old coffee table. It just doesn't want to all come off!

That is me...an old coffee table. Well, it seems that way at times, especially when it seems like I am going forward and I get stuck on an old piece of crud - cruddy laminate. Ever notice how people treat an old coffee table? We used to have one..all scoffed up, dented, and scratched. No one cared what they did to the table. We all dumped stuff on it because we didn't care if it got scratched up; it was already a mess. Well, it sure does seem like I have big old piles of junk get dumped on me these days. I take few steps forward and suddenly there's a big old pile of junk, the same old junk, dumped right down on my path, right on my head! Ouch! It hurts every time.

I was thinking the other day when more old junk got dumped on this old table, (me) that what ever it is I sense God calling me to do must be absolutely amazing! And as I was thinking that the other day, my friend sent me a copy of a devotion. It was from 1 Peter 5:8 "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. It seems like my enemy wants to devour me." He (the enemy) must know more about what God has in store than me than I do because he is sure working hard at holding me back!

But in my walk with the Lord over these past 14 years it has been proven to me that God's not usually just up to one thing when He is at work either. God only not only has me in a time of trial for His ultimate glory and my ultimate future ("Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him." James 1:12 - THAT doesn't sound like an old table, does it?!), but He is using the struggle of the trial to get me to see some patterns of my past - patterns that cannot come with me into the future! He's making it clear that much of the patterns of today's trials are the result of past sin. Sin is not always a deceitful, intentional wrong. Sin is when we just jump to conclusions and run ahead of God. We can't be too careful... EVERYTHING must be covered in prayer, even the seemingly "dadhh" moments...the "who needs to think twice about what to do here" moments. What scares me is that I wonder if I'll ever get that right! Scarier still is to think that if I don't get myself praying even about the little things that I think are just "no-brainers", I will keep getting hit in the face by it and bearing the heartbreak of not doing the right thing.

So while I am wrestling with God today to understand His will for tomorrow (literally for tomorrow), and repent of the things that were done yesterday, I am also kind of secretly excited to know that God has a plan for my life, a "plan to prosper and not harm, a plan of hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11) I can't help but wonder, with all the opposition I am getting in my efforts to move forward with my life, that what the enemy is prowling around trying to destroy me from doing must be amazing! I am praying for strength and great discernment to make choices and decisions in these difficult times according to what I believe God wants me to do, not out of guilt or manipulation that tends to entangle me, so that God can be honored and glorified, I can be set free from another layer of sin patterns, and move forward with God to the amazing days that He holds ahead of me.

What The Future Might Hold

2009-02-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

I promised yesterday that I would share a little of what I think God might have for my future. When I said that yesterday, I was excited about it. Today, I am in a different, more wavering, wondering to believe if it will really happen. But if it is to happen, I want my friends and sisters and brothers in Christ to have been a part of it and to know all the ways God revealed what it is to be, how it is to come about, and how I am to play a part in the ministry. Let me start by telling you a bit of how the idea got started. Here we go...back in time for a moment.

Yesterday I mentioned that I used to live in Canada. I decided to go there, to live, because I'd heard that there was an alternate school program being offered through a local community (Here's a picture of me with some of the folks at the school in Canada, "Twin Valleys") college that was of interest to me. I knew only that they helped kids who had problems - domestic violence, drugs, alcohol, almost any kind of problem. I thought that it was a college program and figured if AWOL draftees could stay there, they'd surely let me live there too so I went. When I got there I found that it was a high school program for kids who had all the problems listed. A good way to explain it might be like a giant home school, where not only academics was taught but also the kids learned to be dependent and self sufficient through farming, building, cooking, and all kinds of life skills. I stayed anyway on a visa as a "student teacher". (Here's one of the dome buildings the students built!)

For a number of years as a Believer I felt strongly that one day God would use my experience in such a place as the school in Canada. I thought it might be to help run a drug rehab center or some kind of place to minister to children and families. I have never been quite sure what the focus would be; I've just pictured myself running it. Vinnie and I had even talked about how much we'd love to run a bed and breakfast some day. It was right up our alley and a good use of our personalities, gifts, talents, and passions. (Yup, even from my hippie days! See group photo below, I'm in the front row)

One day the training of GriefShare here in Wake Forest was sharing a vision she believed God gave her a few years ago for a Grief Center. She asked if we'd pray about it and I did. After a few days through, I felt like God was knocking on my head saying, "Gail, Hello! Can't you see that her dream and yours fit together?" So I picked up the phone and called her right away. I thought we should talk about what my dream was and see how she felt it was to fit together. We've been praying about it ever since and I've been lead to some pretty amazing little connections too, leading me to believe that God is in fact, piece at a time, revealing what His plan really is for this center.

I believe part of it will be like a bed and breakfast. One building will be called the Widow's Peak. There will be an area suited for kids - a camp type of setting, and there will be space for conferences and workshops. There will be also gardens and a library, a dining area, a chapel, and things to do outdoors to enjoy the beauty of God's creation. I am not sure of much else although, like I say, it seems to be coming together piece by piece. It's kind of like putting a puzzle together that doesn't have the box top on it with the picture of the finished product. We have an idea of it's shape but we pick up pieces and think, "this looks like it might be another piece to this picture, let's put it in the pile and see if/when God gives us key pieces to make all the others fit together.

It's hard to be given a dream like this - in pieces, but isn't that how God gives it? He is trusting we will wait, pray, and watch for His hands to create. He is trusting (and protecting us) from going too fast or beyond Him and His timing too. In the meantime, life goes on as usual, and we wait, being on the alert to something that might indicate another piece to the puzzle. It's an honor but it's agony too.

I am open to knowing that there are sisters and brothers in Christ who are praying too for the birth of the Grief Center. We believe it will be called, "Inn The Master's Hands". Like the name? If you feel, after praying, that God is prompting you to give me information that shapes what the center is suppose to be like, I am all ears (or eyes if you email me about it). I'd love to hear from anyone who has thoughts about it!

Wandering Bridge

2009-02-07T15:44:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've been to my blog site. I think the past month or so has been an adjusting time, a bridge of sorts, a tiring, solemn, wandering kind of walk back and forth on a bridge of life. It reminds me of the time I got stuck between two borders, New York and Ontario. I lived in Ontario for 2 1/2 years when I was out of high school. One winter after visiting family in New York, I realized I had forgotten my visa papers at home which was half way between London and Windsor. Getting to NY had not been a problem because security checks were randomly selected during the 70's and I was never selected, in spite of my hippie (me on left with my first car) appearance. I guess it was obvious that I was not skipping the draft of the USA!

Anyway, when I was returning to Ontario, I was asked to show my ID and my visa papers. I didn't have any of them so I was shipped back across the border via cab ride. When I got to NY, they didn't want me either! It was a scary place, especially since I was expecting friends to drive to NY (they finally had to let me back in since I had just come from there) and bring my papers. But a sudden terrible snow storm kept everyone from traveling and I was stuck in Buffalo for 3 days with no ID, very little money, and no one to talk to.

(Here's my graduation picture)
Life this past month has been a little bit like that...of course, I am less scared, more mature, and I have plenty of wonderful friends to talk to. But not being able to go back (to life with Vinnie) and wanting to (or not really knowing any kind of life without him) has been a struggle. Yet, moving forward seems difficult too because I am not sure where I am going. As I began to run out of electronic photos of Vinnie that I could upload to my blog site I began to realize that I needed to start blogging about the life I am suppose to be having AFTER death, after Vinnie's death, after all isn't that the name of this blog? Then tonight...I figured out what I should be writing about...the walk I am having right now, the one of the bridge! I don't have to wait and write about what is on the other side of the bridge; I can write about what the journey is right now on the bridge!

It's going to take me a while to figure things out. I knew Vinnie for almost 30 years, this journey is a bit weirder this age and in these circumstances than say, if I was in my 20's when Vinnie died. I am older, a lot larger, and childless. I don't need help with raising my little girls. I am probably never going to date again so seeking to marry again is probably not in the future scope of things either. There are friends I could join for things like evening dance lessons and workouts but I have so little a salary that outings with anyone must be kept to an all time near-no budget. So I've been wondering what I am suppose to write about...the mundane duties of work each day? Go ahead, you can say it, "That would get old fast!"

So you can take a peek at what life is for one widow who is trying to find her "New Normal" in life. That IS the journey I'm on right now. I will warn you, it's going to be some bouncing around from time zone and era to time zone and era but I think you will get a kick out of it! You see, the journey on this bridge is this...reminiscing where I've been, before Vinnie, (like the photo below of us when we were first engaged) with Vinnie, the cancer, our marriage, our dreams, and of course, a look at what may be ahead for me without him. Are you willing to keep taking the journey with me? If you do, as I begin to take more and clearer steps towards what things might be in store for me in the future, you will surely understand how all the things of my past will be what prepares me for what God has in the future. Put on your seat belts...if you want to take the journey with me, it's going to be a bit Topsy-Turvy for a while but the journey is going somewhere and I'd love for you to be on this trip with me, at least in prayer and with hopes and encouragement.

I will be back tomorrow with a description of what it is like to be a plate when God is trying to scrape it clean. Ouch! It's painful...but I can't wait to be clean, free and clear! I won't get into too much description of what the pain is like and I can't even talk too much about what the stuff is being scraped away (too many personal and family things) but I can say, He sure is turning up the heat to get the job done! I believe He is beginning to show me something that the future might hold for me so I'll give you a peek at it tomorrow. Have I got you in suspense? Good. Come back, because I want you to be updated on what I might be doing one day (when I grow up?) and I'd love to have you praying about it with me. See ya tomorrow!

The Party's Over

2008-12-31T21:13:00.000-08:00

It's funny how differently we all handle situations. When I was about 12 years old or so, my mother took a terrible tumble down the stairs. There was a toy or tools or something left on one of steps. She didn't see it and when she stepped on it, she lost her balance. I was right behind her. She flew in the air and landed on the cement basement floor. She hit her head and it knocked her out.

My sister went bonkers! She started screaming and running all around the basement screaming that she was dead. I kept telling her to be quiet. I could not believe she was so loud and hysterical! I on the other hand, calmly walked down the stairs, leaned over my mother, called her a few times and was prepared to call 911 when she suddenly opened her eyes.

I don't remember what happened next in the situation buy my mother turned out alright. What amazed me, even then, is how cool, calm, and collected I was - me the zealous one! Shortly after that, when everything was okay, is when the effects of rushing adrenalin set in. I cried like a baby while my sister was rejoicing and relieved.

I was like that with Vinnie's cancer too. I hope Vinnie realized this about me. I'd hate for him to leave earth thinking I was callus and didn't care! No, I cared, but it been my instinctive role to make sure everyone else is okay before I give myself permission to fall apart. Actually, I was like that with Vinnie. When he called me from the hospital and told me that his cancer was back, I told him to stop talking because I was coming back to the hospital to talk in person. We talked for hours that night and cried like babies the whole time. The doctor told him that he would not survive the cancer and he would eventually die from it. I was not cool, calm, and collected then. I was thought when we told our kids and our church family.

Vinnie has been gone for four months. Many people were concerned about me over the holidays. I seemed to be okay. I even surprised myself. I had bouts of tearful sadness here and there but it was not overwhelming. I seemed okay. Chritmas Eve came. I was okay. Christmas came. I was okay. But when the weekend was over and the company all went home; I was alone for again and I fell apart. I have been sad since. It seems now like Vinnie just died just a few weeks ago.

So tonight's it's New Year's Eve and I am already anticipating sadness. Oh I'll be strong and happy while my kids and grand children are at the house, but when the party's over, I will again be reminded that there is no longer a "Vinnie and Gail" that will talk about the New Year and what our plans might be for our new year. This too I will talk the New Year and what our plans might be for us in the New Year. This too I will get over (eventually, I hope), but it will take time. I suppose that is why it is said that it takes two to five years to get grief of a spouse, especially if the spouse took up half one's life! Life without Vinnie is a party over, but hopefully there are new "parties" for me in the days ahead - even in the days ahead in 2009!

Leaning Into Pain - the way to heal and get stronger

2008-12-22T05:14:00.001-08:00

The pictures today are all of Vinnie being horsey to his kids and grand kids...the tradition carried on for many years!

The bible verse for today on my blog site is from Micah chapter 5 verse 2. it reads: "You, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Once again, God has proved how cool He is and that the Holy Spirit does live in those who believe and live for Him. I've been prayerfully thinking about what I should write about next on my blog. This morning, after completely another day's study I am doing, it dawned on me what I need to write about - what God is teaching me now. Then I got on my site to work on it and the Bible verse for the days fits right into the theme of today's post! That is just like God - another one of His fingerprints!

My Vinnie, as strong as he was, as big a man as he was, did not like pain. If he got a splinter in his hand, he would rather have left it in than have someone dig it out. The reason for this crazy approach? He didn't like the pain of digging out the splinter! Of course, you know why it's crazy...it already hurts and it will hurt worse if it's not taken care of! And since he couldn't deal with the pain of removing it, I'd have to insist that I tend to the wound, cut the skin a little, remove the splinter, get anti-biotics on it, and wait for the healing to begin. In order for this happen, he'd have to admit he had a problem, allow me to go in and fix it, clean it up so it would not get infected, and admit he was a weakling and could not do it himself. He had to become small enough to get some work done on him.

What I love about this verse in Micah is that God is speaking to Bethlehem and telling them that the "One who will be ruler over Isreal", Jesus, is going to come out of this little town, the "smallest among the clans of Judah". My theme for today is that God uses the small, meek, humble and weak to fulfill His plan. If we want to be lifted up by God, we have bend down first, not only confess our weakness and desperation for Him, but acknowledge and embrace it first.

I have been attending a GriefShare program for the past 13 weeks. I am told that I am doing well and healing quickly in the program and will be training over the next 13 weeks to facilitate a discussion group. I am excited to know that it is possible to heal quickly from the grief of so many losses my family and I have had this year. Some people grieve for years. I know a lady lives a hidden life tucked away in a dark corner of the world because she never dealt with her grief in a healthy way of about 27 years ago! If you met her she might appear strong but when if you were to discuss issues with her that surround the grief, the resentment, anger, bitterness, and other emotions would clearly be seen lurking behind a self made wall of strength. On one of the video sessions at GriefShare, a man tells of his experience in another type of program for those grieving the loss of a loved one. He describes a couple who starts telling the story of their daughter's murder. The man listens intently, sad for this couple whose emotions are raw and painful. He later learned that the murder happened something like 14 or 17 years ago! He decided right then that somehow he was going to face his grief and move forward, dreading the idea of living in this much pain for that long. Like the splinter in the finger, if it's not taken care of it becomes a huge mess!

Maybe because I came to the GriefShare program so freshly hurting the loss of my Vinnie, I started two weeks after he died, and found it to be a safe place to grieve, that has given me what perhaps some haven't had. I hadn't had time to find my 'own way' of dealing with the pain (or as some do - ignore it and face something else). I've followed the experts advice pretty much from the beginning. I think one's 'own way' comes when one doesn't know what to do with the pain and just doesn't want to feel it anymore. It is afterall, quite painful and we don't want to go there. Television commercials are geared toward what we think we want and there are plenty of commercials advertising drugs to help eliminate pain of some kind. I am not saying there's anything wrong with medications, but when I hear what kinds of possible side effects can occur by taking them, I have to wonder what is worse, the original pain or the new ones? It reminds me of Vinnie's splinters. One way or another, one has to face the pain! The couple mentioned in the video faced their anger about the murder but they never faced the pain of losing their daughter. See the difference?

Facing pain is hard, whether it is pain of a loss of a loved one, pain because your spouse has abandoned you, your child is wayward and rebellious, or any number of things. Here's the point I am trying to get at...God's promise to "use all things for the good of those that love Him" (Romans 8:28) is just as true, even more so in my personal opinion, when it comes to God using grief. Grief, sorrow, sadness, desperation, you name it, my experience has proven that these emotions are meant to be like radar, signals that tell us we need God! So many feel like God abandoned them when their loved one dies when in fact, a sinful world brings death - it's a 100% death rate in the world, remember? But when death comes, God comes to comfort those left behind. He does! He loves to. He wants us to know we need Him but it takes a humble person, like Vinnie with a splinter in his finger, to admit we need help. God wants to use grief and all the other painful emotions to draw us closer to Him. Oh, if only I could stand on a mountain top and shout this out to a hurting world. Are you listening world?!!!!

If the world could hear me, there'd be few to listen, I'm afraid. Not that what I have to say is great, but what God's taught me is great and He doesn't want just a few to experience it either. So here's what I ask of you, the reader of this little blog...if you are grieving, lean into it. Don't be afraid to be small and wounded. Let God, the great healer, make you see the pain differently, from His perspective. Now it is not up to you to say how long it should take, in fact, if it's an amputation that is needed, it may always hurt, but your pain will always remind you to go to the One who will make you able to live with it, experiencing joy right along side the pain. In this case, the pain will never go away so why not go where there can also be joy too! If you are not grieving and you are reading this, I ask that you look around. If you see those who are hurting, tell them that it is a built in radar device God gives us to tell us it's time to tune into the Healer. He wants us to know Him and the more desperate we are the more we will lean on Him and know Him. If it's a person that has had a loved one die, tell them about GriefShare. It's Christ centered and Biblically based on the Gospel and Truth. He is after all, the only source of Hope any of us can ever have. Any other source of supposed stregth else will eventually crumble under our feet.

Dreams Come True - delight yourself in the Lord

2008-12-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

The pictures in today's post were of our mini vacation in the NC mountains on our 25th wedding anniversary just 2 1/2months before Vinnie died - the last vacation we would take together.

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." It comes from Psalms 37:4 I have given this passage much thought; allow me to explain some important things. This passage can be taken two ways. One, God sometimes, out of love, like all loving fathers, gives us things that will delight us, but like the same loving fathers, he'll give us those things only when He knows they really will delight us. Those reading this that have children know that kids ask for things that we know in a month, a year from now, or somewhere down the road, they will regret getting. We would not want to give them those things and neither does God! He has even more reason for not giving us everything we ask...He knows us better than we know ourselves, He knows the future and how all things would effect His plan for our life, and He knows the long lasting effect any desire might have on our heart. God looks upon the heart, so He is very concerned about how things effect our hearts. (1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "... The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.")

Here's the other, really cool thing that I love about this passage: When we put our trust and faith in Him, when He fills us with the Holy Spirit, the same spirit that lived in Jesus (...the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, ...Romans 8:11a), He gives US HIS desires! Isn't that cool?! Yes, He gives us His desires, then we pray His will back to Him and He gives us those things I and He both desire! Amazing! So many people will accept Christ, believe, or make a profession of faith, when they are hoping that God will give them what they want, without regard or desire to find out what He wants. I know people who have literally walked away from the faith because God didn't give them a lot of money when they prayed for it! They want the money to live with ease but God doesn't want us to live with ease. He knows if we do, we won't need Him, we'll forget about Him. That's sad because He gave His only Son so we could have a relationship with Him, not a bank account. If we have everything we want because our bank book allows it, what would we need God for? No, God knows how much we need Him so He's not going to give us something that would take us away from having what is more important! Doesn't it make sense that God knows what that would do to their relationship with Him? God doesn't want to be an ATM machine to us!

No, He wants us to have His heart, to seek to be like Him, to live life for His purpose like Jesus did. And that is what I desire to do. So I have been seeking God's heart, His desire for my life. And why not? I have so many times thought I knew what I was supposed to do with my life. I so often thought I understood what my purpose is/was and I was burned in the end. No, God made me and He knows what will make me most happy. I want to desire what He wants, to be part of His plan. I want Him to give me the desire of His heart.

I have been praying about this for some time now, especially as it relates to my life now without my Vinnie. I have been praying that God would use my life and my story for His plan, for His purpose. This morning, in fact, I was singing this song with a line that says, “Here I am, Lord send me...my life’s an offering, ..” and decided to turn on the radio to get that song out of my head (I tend to wear songs out!) The song on the radio was the exact song I had been singing and it came on right where I was singing it! Oh my God...He is awesome! And in the song, I heard the next line, for the first time, “My life’s story, fits in Your plan….here I am.” THAT is what I’ve been saying all along, for a year, really, that God would use my story (which is really His story) to fit it in his plan of redemption in the lives of others! Get it? I want what God wants, my desire is His desire, for His plan, for mine. What an amazing reminder that He is at work in my life!

I cannot say exactly (at this point) what God is brewing but He is surely at work! Pray that God will bring into manifestation those things which He seems to be bringing to my mind that He may want me to do in the days ahead, even in the near future. They are beyond my wildest dreams (of a few years ago) but seem to be so possible. Pray God opens doors and shows me how, the dream I believe is His dream, is going to become reality. I am so excited about becoming part of His plan, and that He would use me, someone who is no one really, in and of myself. it shouldn't surprise me though, because this is what God loves to do - take ordinary people and give them His power to do extraordinary things - as long as we are willing to be instruments in His hands, why would what we do be amazing!

Joy of the Lord is our Strength!

2008-12-12T14:56:00.000-08:00

Nehemiah 8:10 “This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength."

My last post talked about joy and sorrow mixed, but this one is about the Joy of the Lord being our strength. This is an interesting passage in Scripture! Joy of the Lord is our strength. It could be said that the opposite is true - depression, from Satan, is our weakness. While we are remain being weak in the sense of humility before God but the weakness I mean here is vulnerability. So I could say, the Joy of the Lord is our strength and depression (from Satan) makes us vulnerable. Both of these things have been very important thought processes for me these past few weeks.

I had a dream one night recently about lions. There were several of them around. They were hungry and mean. I don’t know if lions are mean but the ones in my dream were like the ones Peter describes in 1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. The lions in my dream were going around literally tearing people up. They were tearing at skin, and wrapping their jaws around heads, even their own heads. It was gross to say the least! (And I don’t want to get any of you sick!)

Satan is looking for the vulnerable, the weak, the ones weak in faith and that have no joy. Joy, by the way, is not the same as happiness! That is important. I have a pet peeve about that. I get a bit irritated when I hear someone tell another that they just want the person to “be happy”. Now there’s nothing wrong with being happy but if being happy is our life goal, no wonder we get depressed! Happiness comes from our circumstances. We are happy when our children have taken a nice long nap and we are able to fit in an extra chapter to a good book, or finish the laundry stacked up to the ceiling. We are happy when our boyfriend gives us an engagement ring or when our husband’s surprise us with a bouquet of flowers or tickets to a show. We are happy when we can buy a bigger house with nicer furniture or when we lose enough weight to fit into the pants we had on before we ever became pregnant. But the problem with happiness is that the husband doesn’t bring flowers home anymore, the kids don’t nap at all, the laundry is always piled to the ceiling, and falling over onto the messy drink one of the kids just spilled in the laundry room (what were they doing in there anyway?). Our circumstances change too often and until we are in Heaven were everything thing, every relationship, and every ‘me’ is perfect, we will be happy all the time.

Joy is different. Joy can coincide along with sorrow! I was with friends last Monday at a restaurant. We were reminiscing about my Vinnie and some of the funny things he use to do. We were laughing like crazy…he was a very funny guy…but I was also crying. Part of me misses him terribly. I long to hear his voice. I long to have a conversation with him, to ask him things, to get his help, to go for a ride with him, or a walk with him. The beach will never be the same for me. The mountains will not either. Nothing will be. But I am SO full of joy that he is in the most perfect place any human can ever be in! I am full of joy that I will join the Lord and see Vinnie again there someday. I am so full of Joy that his life had meaning and purpose while he was here on earth just as mind does, and it has different meaning and purpose now that he is in his new home, just as mine will. I am filled with Joy because I know the Lord, He has proven himself again and again in my life and I have confidence in Him, even now that my Vinnie’s not here. I am thankful that my relationship with the Lord has been central in my life while Vinnie was here because because it is one part of my world that hasn't changed - and never will!

(The picture here of our grandson is Vinnie's way of goofing around. They were playing it up that Tyler was sick and he wrapped this ace bandage on his head and put the thermometer in his mouth. No wonder the child misses him - his goofy grandpa!)

It's ironic that my name, Gail, means, "a source of joy". The name Gale means something different. Gayle and Gail mean a source of joy. My mother must have instinctively known my name should be Gail because I know the joy of the Lord, I love to share the joy of the Lord with others, and I love the strength it gives me against my enemy - he can't weaken me, I am strong against his desire to pull me down and chew me up. Joy in the Lord. It will make us stronger every day! Praise God.

Sorrow and Joy - a real tossed salad

2008-12-06T19:05:00.000-08:00

These are pictures of Vinnie and me at the beach. We tried to go to the beach every June for our anniversary.

I love springtime. It's my favorite season! I love some snow - as long as it's just a little snow and it doesn't interfere with life, work, etc, I like it. I like summer because there's swimming, and long sunny days, and since the invention of A.C. heat is nothing to really complain about. I love fall because, let's face it, the leaves are absolutely gorgeous and the cool days are a relief - the AC can be turned off and it's a break on the old wallet! But spring is the sign of new life. I love the color of spring leaves - they are lime green - a fresh, clean, new green. That is the only time you see leaves that color. I love the regathering of birds that are happy to be home again, chirping and singing their wonderful tunes of love as they mate and give birth to a whole family of new baby birds. I love seeing butterflies start to appear and of course, my favorite of all - the hummingbird appears again.

Spring is also a time when I get in the mood to eat fresh veggies again and salads. Salads are interesting - think about it - a salad is a dish that allows us to combine all kinds of vegetables and or fruits, cheeses, meats, mayo and or other dressings, nuts too if you like and toss it all up. I love that...the toss it all up and create a lovely, delicious, eye pleasing dish called a salad.

Life is a bit of a salad too, isn't it? We can have all kinds of experiences, good ones, bad ones, sad ones. We could say that a full life is to have experienced a well mixed salad of all kinds of things. I think it is our selfish nature, and perhaps the influence of our American culture that makes us want all the ingredients to be ala carte in life - we can pick and choose and if we don't like one, we can toss it out instead of toss it in. We want to be wealthy so we can pay to have the bad removed and not deal with pain, sickness, and sorrow. But some sorrow just surpasses the ability to live blissfully. Death of a loved one comes to everyone eventually.

Now salads are meant to be enjoyable, refreshing, delicious. I also grew up forced to eat everything on my plate. It made me fatter, yes, but it also made me more apt to like a lot of foods I might otherwise assume I don't like. Life is a salad. It's a mix of all kinds of things and if you know the Lord, and He has helped build your faith, as tough things come your way, you will learn that things like sorrow CAN be mixed with joy. I think there is a sense of guilt that is either built into us at birth or somehow built into us in our culture, that if we are full of sorrow, or even if we think we should be and that we are being loyal to someone (like the dead person) so we want to stay there - sad. There seems to be this idea that if we are supposed to be sad, that there is not supposed to be joy too. Well, if life is a salad, why not?

It's the bitter and hard that draw us close to God so we can't complain when we experience it because God uses it to draw us closer to Him, to show us the junk in our own heart that still needs to be gotten rid of, and He shows us that if we lay ourselves down in his hands, no, life may not look like it would if we were the captain, but it would be an awesome life, a life where we learn how God can use ordinary people for Him, instead of living life for me. It's a more fulfilling life anyway...believe me! So if we can understand or grasp that to any extent, we must also be thankful for it, right?

When I was still taking care of Vinnie, I remember one day walking by this beautiful basket I created for my daughter's bridal shower. It had pink flowers all over it and a pink organza bowed on top of the handle. I remember thinking for a brief moment that I would make my bedroom and bathroom full of flowers when Vinnie was gone. I felt TERRIBLE for thinking such a thing! Shame on me! I felt terribly guilty for this thought and mentioned it to a friend of mine, a lady who had lost her husband to cancer too. She looked me straight in the eye and said, "Don't you feel guilty about that!" She said, "That is the Lord showing you that there is and will be joy for you even after Vinnie's gone. Don't feel guilty, look for more of those things so your heart is prepared to find joy. There will be plenty of sorrow. Look also for joy."

I am here to tell you that there is joy and sorrow mixed. I am sad that Vinnie is not with me to talk to in the evening, but I love the new bedroom set I have and Vinnie would never have loved that lavender stuff! I'd trade that lavender stuff in a heart beat! But I can't, so I will just enjoy it. There are many things I'd rather have the way it used to be, but they will never be that way again. I can cry about that, and I do, plenty, but it's not going to change what is. So...I must find joy, little things that make me smile, laugh, or just fun (without being sinful or gobbling up my finances) and do so even in the midst of still deep sorrow. And the greatest of these joys in finding that God still loves me, still talks to me, still has a plan for my life. THAT is real joy too. Joy and sorrow would not be my choice in life. I was happy the way it was. But since sorrow is in the mix, and here to stay for a long, long time, I might as well as find a way to endure it - like in a salad that has a lot of other things in it too - like JOY!

Vinnie and I - Born Again

2008-12-04T03:40:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture of Vinnie building sand castles in the sand with our grand children's first trip to the beach.

As promised, today's story is about how Vinnie and I came into a relationship with Christ. We were born again. I had heard of people years ago who said they were 'born again' and I avoided them like they had the plaque. I remember one time while waiting in line for something, a mother was singing songs about Jesus to her little kids. I remember wondering why she couldn't "give it a break, already". I later became one of those mothers! Now I am that kind of grandmother! Yikes!!! How did that happen? Here's what happened... When we were first married, we could not decide what to do about church. Neither of us went to church in years, and Vinnie was from the Catholic church. I was from the Episcopalian church. Both churches were ingrained in hatred for the other (go figure!) So we never went to church until our oldest daughter was in kindergarten. Her friends went to church and she asked us what it was. She said she wanted to go to one. We visited a couple and stayed at a little mission church not far from where we lived. It was a great group of people and that was our motivation to joining. It had nothing to do with being a good Biblically based church! So when we moved to NC it was our natural inclination to attend another Episcopal church but the one in town was frustrating us. We made a few friends there but it was boring for the kids, and us too, truth be known. That summer, in spite of my dodging to become a Baptist here in the Bible belt of America, I allowed the girls to go to Vacation Bible School that summer. Hey...can you blame me? It was a week long program for the kids and it was FREE! Whahoo for me! On Thursday that week, my oldest daughter came home excited because she'd been "saved" that day. I patted her on the head and said something like, "that's nice dear". (This is a picture of Vinnie with his youngest brother and his father.)

When she started school that fall, she became involved in Girl Scouts. The troop met at a Baptist church in town. I didn't care where the girls met, but Amy was intrigued with the church sign that said, "A Fresh Approach To Knowing God". She would tell me every week that she believed God wanted our family to come to that church. I told her week after week that we were not Baptists and would not step foot in a Baptist church but God had a different plan! One Sunday morning while getting ready to go to our Episcopal church, the kids refused. They held onto the doorway in the house and said that I could not make them go...they were really refusing! Amy told me that we should go to the 'other church' and I finally, with much frustration, gave in. We visited the church with a 'fresh approach' and wouldn't you know - I loved it!

I came home and told Vinnie about it and persuaded him to go the following week. It was the following week that I had the most amazing, almost unexplainable experience (but I'll try). During the worship time, I glanced around the room and suddenly became overwhelmed by the entire room full of people worshipping with the deepest, most sincere and genuine expression to God I'd ever seen. It brought me to tears. Then, in all my sobbing, I felt like God was speaking to me. It was in my mind but it was clearly a conversation. God said something like, "Think back about all those times you almost died." (there were three times I tried to commit suicide as a young girls, three near rapes, and a week of doing so much drugs I knew if I got high one more time, I'd die). He continued, "I am the One that intervened, I am the one who brought someone in the room when you were almost raped and when you tried to kill yourself. I have been protecting you your whole life. I've let you stray some to the right and to the left, but when you staggered too far, I am the One who pushed you back on course. I did this because you are my child. You have always been my child. I have great things for you and I needed to bring you to 'Today'. Today you must surrender to me. You may not stray anymore. I have things for you to do and I need you to stop playing around and listen to me." I was overwhelmed to say the least! I remember at one point thinking that I could run out of the church to get away from this God, but then I heard his voice again (in my head) saying, "You can run but you will be hidden in the hem of my robe so you'll never really get away from me. Why resist?" It was not for maybe another year or so that I found this verse in Scripture: "You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me." (Psalm 139:5)

I was shocked to know that God really did speak to me that day - from His Word! I don't think I'd ever heard that passage before - I didn't really know much of what the Bible said. I didn't know or understand what Jesus did on the cross. I had to ask a lot of questions about all that after, but there was no question - I had given my life to Christ that day, in faith! I had become a new person, a new creation in Christ, in faith. Later on God would explain to me why this was possible through His Son Jesus but at that point, it was just clearer, it didn't change that I was a new Creation in Christ. I'd been born again! My life was never to be the same again. And it surely has not been either!

Vinnie liked the church and we continued to attend there all these years. Vinnie felt called to be a priest when he was a boy and attended Catholic seminary for something like 9 or 10 years in Italy. But he began to see too much hypocrisy and left the church. When I became a new Believer and we continued to attend this church that was teaching profound Truth right from the Bible, and encouraging us to go to the Bible too, this had major impact on Vinnie. He began to realize that though he'd known and Believed in Christ his whole life, what was missing, and now being offered to him, was a personal relationship with Christ. Vinnie's born again experience was more like the pregnancy - it was gradual, but again, there was no question.

Eventually our youngest daughter devoted her life to Christ (remember Amy was first in the family), and eventually so did Vinnie's kids, Michael and Christine. We have each had very different journeys, God dealing with each of us according to the sins we hovered in our hearts over the years. He's dealt with each of us in areas of rebellion, lust, gluttony, drugs, alcohol, and all areas of trouble but we are thankful for His work in us and for Jesus.

I like the story of the judge who charged a man during the depression for stealing bread for his family. He had to do because it was the law. But as soon as he charged the man, he recessed the court, took a donation from every person in the court room, gave the man the money so he could pay the fine for his crime. In some ways that represents what Christ did for us. We could not possibly get out of paying the penalty for all the sin that has lived in our hearts. We are born with it. Look at little tiny tots who have rebellion and selfishness. It's inherent! Knowing we could never get back into a relationship with God on our own, and wanting to be close to us again (like He originally created us in the beginning) He asked His perfect Son to come pay our penalty for us so we could become close to Him again. And because Jesus rose again to new life, it opened the way for us to have a new life too - we could be born again!

We have a new life in Christ. I am so thankful that we do now - because I know where Vinnie is and I'd never wish him back here for his sake! He's where we all belong - where it's glorious and there's no more pain and suffering or sadness. I also know that I could not keep living, at least without joy, in this life if I didn't have some understanding that God has a purpose in me being here. He has things for me to do and I am bound and determined to find out what these things are so when it is time to leave here and join Him at Home (and with Vinnie) I can hear Him say, "well done, good and faithful servant!" It's my last prayer before going Home.

Christmas Holidays - too busy to be sad!

2008-12-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

This is Vinnie on a Saturday morning cartoons day with two of our grandchildren.

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving! Vinnie and I used to have Thanksgiving with my sister and her family on Thursday. When our kids got engaged and married, we told them to have dinner with their spouses families and we'd have our celebration of thanks on Friday. So this year, I had dinner on Thursday with my mother, two sisters, their husbands, and my two nephews. It was nice - quiet, relaxing, and a nice visit. Friday was nice too but there were 19 of us stuffed in my house. Eight of them are kids 13 and under! It's a bit noisier, but fun.

Now it's December 1. Oh my gosh, the month barely started and it's the holiday rush thing! Phew! I am already eager to get off this train! No...it's moving too fast, if I jump off I'll break a leg! So I spent the evening ordering gifts on line. That's the way to go...no gas, no crowds, no clerks too new to know how to help find something. It's simple, fast, and I can do it like I do everything else in life (it seems at times) - online! Yeah!
This is my youngest grandson at Halloween. He was dressed as Elmo, his favorite, but would not stay still for a picture. He hated that head piece!

And just to make the holiday season a bit more nuts...I signed up to be a Tastefully Simple consultant. Am I nuts? Well, no. I really need the extra income. I figured if I do it now I'll make a little extra for the holidays. Besides, there are great gifts I can give from Tastefully Simple too. I love their foods! Baskets for all! (Don't worry kids! You won't get just food!)

Yesterday was our Thanksgiving service at our church. The first time I visited our church it was a Thanksgiving service. I could not believe it when we arrived that first Sunday! People were given an opportunity to get up and share what they were thankful for! Wow...I was the first one up this year. The teaching (before sharing time) was on conquering bitterness with thankfulness. It dawned on me, yeah, if I were going to be a bitter person, this would have been the best year to qualify! I lost two friends this year, twin grand babies, my husband and his son! And funerals/death/grieving was not all we had to endure. There were 3 weddings (all our won kids!), two breakups of a marriage (now reconciled for now hopefully for good!), a sick husband suffering from unbelievable pain all year, and the list goes on and on. But I am thankful, as I said in my last post, for a great church that teaches the Truth even if it goes against the status quot. And victorious walks though hard times with God over the past 14 years have been the very thing that built a foundation by which to stand on now in all this death and stuff. They started off as little things. Here's a few...

I remember when my step children came to America in 1995 & 96. We had a small dining room and four comfy chairs. When we had company we whipped out some old chairs and the kids got those. It wasn't very comfy when there were 6 every night for dinner! I remember asking my Sunday school class to pray for chairs. I don't know what possessed me to pray for chairs, but it just popped out of my mouth. The leader of the prayer time asked me what kind of chairs - hoping he might come across some on one his yard sale adventures. I described, almost in details, two type chairs I'd seen in the past that would look good and be more comfortable for our family. I told him I really only needed two chairs but if there were three or four and they were cheap enough, I'd take them all.

Here's one of my grandchildren dressed as Grandpa for Halloween. No one else knew who he was supposed to be but he did and was sure proud of it too!

A week later, while talking to a neighbor, we noticed another neighbor had her husband's truck all filled up with furniture. We went over to see if she was moving. She wasn't. She'd helped a friend move and there were left over pieces she didn't want to take to the dump. My neighbor was hoping to find someone who could use it. I asked if she had any chairs on the truck. She sure did! She had two of each chair I had described the week before in Sunday school! I knew it was God's way of saying that He really is in control of all things in our lives and the world around us. It was His way of showing me how the Holy Spirit in us works in us. It was his way of telling me that He orchestrates all things at all times for our good, His love for us, and His glory. That same God took Vinnie. What else am I to think but I trust Him even though I don't understand why.

A few weeks before I was about to homeschool my teenage daughters through middle school, I told them they could join some kind of activity (dance, horseback riding, a sport). My oldest chose horseback riding right away. My youngest had to think about it a bit. She came back to me and said she'd like to take piano lessons. I told her that piano lessons would not work out because sh would need a piano to practice on. Since we didn't have one and could not afford to buy one, she'd have to pick something else. I told her to pray and pray she did. She came to me a few more times saying she felt like God wanted her to take piano. I finally told her if she really believed that, she should start praying for the piano because I wasn't paying for lessons without one! She prayed. A week later, the same neighbor that gave us her friends chairs a year before, called to see if I knew of anyone who had a sleeper sofa for sale. I told her, I was getting ready to have a yard sale and actually had a sleeper sofa I was selling! The conversation went on. She was clearing out her attic and asked me if I wanted all kinds of things she had up there (looking for a trade). I wasn't much interested in what the attic was storing, but then she said something like, "in fact, I have this old piano collecting dust in my dining room. Know anyone who could use a really old piano?" I am NOT KIDDING! We traded my sleeper sofa for a free piano. And would you guess that the one person I would have wanted to give lessons just happened to have one opening left and on a day when my daughter was free to go!

And here's my granddaughter, dressed as - you guessed it - a princess! What else?!

God is good. He loves us and He's good to us. Life in Christ is not about us, it's about Him, but He sure does do a good job of building our faith and revealing who He is really is - both in His Word and in His world. I am thankful that I am a Believer because if it weren't for Jesus, I'd be a basket case today! My next post will be the story of how Vinnie and I became Believers. It's a pretty cool story!

Giving Thanks

2008-11-27T06:31:00.000-08:00

Here's me with my sister and my mom while we get ready for the Thanksgiving meal together.

It's Thanksgiving. I called my mother on the phone a little while ago (even though I am going to see her soon!). She said she was thinking of me because she was "thinking it might be a ___, well, you know, a ___ ". I said, "Mom, do you think it's going to be a SAD day?" That's what she was thinking but didn't want to even say the word, sad. Isn't she cute?

No, while there are plenty of sad thoughts in this day, I am more thankful than anything. In fact, I am so thankful that I even tried (for hours) to get through to K-Love Radio that other day attempting to the be the , "I'm thankful for..." representative of the state of North Carolina. I never got through but I can say more things on my blog that I am thankful for today than I could on the radio. So...here goes.....!

I am thankful that I am a Believer of Jesus Christ because He lives in me. There are countless times in my days that I am so aware that I probably would not think a certain something or do something in particular if it were not for that! The same Spirit that lives in me is the One that lived in Jesus. THAT is a very profound and humbling truth! (Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father.") I am thankful for faith, hope, and the promptings and 'voice' of God that give me directions, discernment, and peace. I would not have the confidence in God's promises. I would not be sure that I will join my Vinnie when I leave this earth - I would not even be sure where Vinnie might be right now either. I am thankful for this because I would never know God, be close to Him or even have the chance if it weren't for the blood of Jesus spilled on a cross that I deserved, to pay the penalty for my sins because I would never be able to. Now THAT is love! (The photo above and below are of my two nephews. They keep the couch warm while we ladies get dinner ready! I should add though that they did help their mom make desserts this week. They are good kids.)

I am thankful that God is at work in my life and in my family's lives. It's such a joy to see prayers answered, to see maturity in each of the kids, their spouses, their children. I love to hear the little ones sing songs they learned from Sunday School classes. Even my grandson Tyler has learned almost the entire song, "Here I Am To Worship" because it was grandpa's favorite song. I am so thankful to have my kids living near enough to see them pretty regularly. I am thankful to have a lovely little house to spend time with them in. I am thankful for my home, my church, my friends, Sisters and Brothers in Christ, my mother, sisters and all the amazingly wonderful people who have helped me, counseled me, spent time with me, cooked for me, and are nudging me along the path of finding my new life.

I am thankful that winter is only a few months here - although it's been too cold for these parts so far this year! I am thankful that it's usually a mild winter. I love the spring. Life emerges again and I am thankful for this reminder of new life. I can hardly wait to open my windows and listen to the millions of birds around my house when the spring comes! I hope to see millions of hummingbirds! They are so beautiful!

I am thankful for electronic technology that allows me to send notes to friends around the world and even call the other side of the earth without a flaw. I am thankful to be knit together in God's work around the world through prayer and financial support.

I am thankful and that is a pretty big step from the painful person I was just three months ago. I am thankful to know, with all my heart, that somehow I will get on with my life and discover what things God still has planned for my life in the days ahead. I am thankful to know that God will turn my mourning into dancing. That is an awesome promise for someone like me in a place like this and in the loss of the most best friend I may ever have in this lifetime. I am thankful.

The photo on the right is of the campfire that my brother-in-law made tonight in honor of Vincent and Michael. If they were here, they would have been hanging out by this fire most of the night, as they were many times in years past. Now they stand before the One whose eyes are ablaze but we were thinking of them anyway, in front of our little campfire.

New Friends...New Things To Do

2008-11-24T20:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I can honestly say that I have been having a wonderful few days. I went to choir practice last night and I was invited to go have hot chocolate with one of the ladies in choir who is not married. She's younger, like maybe in her mid to late 20s. I was tired; I had planned to go grocery shopping after practice, but I felt like it was my first opportunity to act single. Get that...ACT single. I am single. It's going to take a long time to get used to that concept. I am still Vinnie's wife - well, it's just weird.

So I ended up going to Starbucks about 9 and stayed an hour - until the place closed, then went outside to talk for another 15 minutes in the cold! I went shopping after that! I know it was late and it would have been good to go to bed right about then, but there were no lines in the store and there sure would be after work the next day, especially with Thanksgiving just days away. It was good to chat with girlfriends. I haven't really felt like I've had much time with girlfriends. It was wonderful!

Tonight I had a gold party. Friends are supposed to come over and bring old gold. The gold people examine the gold and but it from you. They give you cash. Not too many parties let you go home with money. It's fun. But only one friend showed up! It was okay though because two other friends gave me gold and they got good money for their gold too. But the party didn't last too long since there weren't any other guests. When the gold people left, I had another lady to stay and chat with me! Oh my goodness...it was so nice to have company! She stayed until just a little while ago - 11 PM! Yikes! I am becoming such a night owl! I really need to go to bed but I just have to say that I like girlfriend time. I have been with married ladies for so long and when I am free to be with them, they are with their husbands. That's appropriate but for me, I need to look for friendships where husbands can spare the girls for a night once in a while and/or some other ladies looking to spend girlfriend time with me. One young lady wants to come bake cookies together with me for the holidays! How cool is that?! And another lady I haven't spent time with since we were home with our kids, wants to have a night together to visit while her husband is involved in hockey season, and yet another wants to go to a movie with me one Saturday!

I am so excited to think about new things - new things to do with my spare time (oh gosh if I could just get through all the banking stuff that has piled up over the past three months. Will I ever get it off my plate so I can really have time cleared up to go have girlfriend time? It doesn't feel like it!) Anyway...I am beginning to see, for the first time since Vinnie died, that I might have a life of my own. I'd trade it in a heart beat to have my Vinnie back. I'd give almost anything with my integrity for that! But I also know there's nothing I can give to have that. He's not coming back here and I have to stay. He'd want me to live and seek the life that God wants for me now. I have a choice to either stay buried at home in loneliness, trying to understand how God can fill the void of my husband no longer holding me in his arms while we dream and reminisce together. The only way that earthly void is going to be filled is with some earthly flesh and blood and girlfriends will fill that void pretty well. It seems to be a good fit for now. I feel young again and excited to see what kinds of new friendships God will put in my path in the days, months and years ahead.

Soon I'll start putting up pictures of me and my friends on my blog! But since I don't have any yet, you will continue to get pictures of my Vinnie - old and recent ones. Hope you love looking at him from over the years. He was a very special man, very special. I will always love him from the bottom of my heart. He was the love of my life. He always will be...but it's different now. It's different now.

Living for the Glory of God

2008-11-20T18:23:00.000-08:00

One thing that someone who is grieving, especially in the beginning, does not want to be reminded of is the Truth, a Promise from God, found in Romans 8:28. If you are a Christian, you probably know this verse by heart. It says, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." This is good news for those who are struggling with a difficult situation or if a friend or family is a difficult situation. It's good news for those grieving too but it's not what they really want to hear in the beginning. That is because it's hard to remember when your heart is aching to such a heart ripping wrenching way, that it's not about "me"! It's easy to forget that we are to live for the glory of God. It seems like we are being attacked, someone's been taken away from "me"; why? I know a family member who wondered, "why does God need him, anyway, [when we needed him so much more, I think could be implied here] with anger over a mean old God who would do such a thing to "me". It's not uncommon to hear or think this way at a time of grieving, especially if those grieving do not have a true Biblical perspective or personal joyful relationship with God.

I am not sure what God's plan is for my life now and I cannot tell anyone why Vinnie had to die and two months later, why his son died too. I cannot answer that question at all. But I can say that God will bring good out of the situation. That is a promise. I know this because it's been proven in my life many time over and over again over the years with my Vinnie. And God hasn't changed one bit! One reason why sometimes it's difficult to understand this promise to be true is when the expectation of 'good' translates to mean that the good is for "me". But if our lives have been surrendered to God, and we understand that God has a purpose in all things as they fit in the big scheme of things (God's scheme, not our own) we can begin to see that the "good" is sometimes for other people's good. Over time other's 'good' because our joy. Let me give you an example of this in my life.

Several years ago, when Vinnie and I joined the church I am not a member, I sang on the worship team. I remember being in the New Member's class (which I think was the first New Member's class at our church) and was asked what kinds of ministries I might like to be involved in. I remember distinctly saying that I am pretty enthusiastic about several ministries and would love to be involved in any of them except children's ministries. My justification for this comment, even though I do like children, is that I didn't believe that children liked me.

One weekend the worship team went to a worship worshop. It was amazing and it changed my life, really! When we came back I wondered why we weren't making an effort to teach the things we had learned to the congregation - but we didn't. I remember talking one day to a friend on the team about my passion to teach what we learned at the worshop but felt like it should be taught to the children. I remember her saying, "That's a great idea, Gail, why don't you talk to the children's pastor and start something for the kids?" I explained that I'd have to stick to being a helper or write curriculum because no one would want me to teach kids. Kid's don't like me, remember?!

Well, two years later, I believe, she finally gave up on me starting something for the kids and she started something with the kids instead. It was a big success but she could not handle it alone. So in a church prayer meeting one night the pastor asked if we'd pray for a helper to come alongside my friend and help lead worship with the children. A little voice told me that if I didn't speak up, someone else would take over my job! I told th pastor that the helper had already come forward. When he asked who the helper was, I said a meek little, "me".

It took five weeks before I was brave enough to get in the front of the room with the kids but once I got over the extreme fear, I was hooked! I loved it! They loved it! I eventually took over all the grade school Sunday school classes and teachers, schedules, etc. Then I went to a conference to learn how to apply a new curriculum I'd found for the grade school kids. I remember hearing a little voice every once in awhile that weekend, telling me that I could do things their way when "I run the children's ministry". This didn't make any sense. There was a children's pastor who did that and I was not qualified to teach boo-coo to anyone! I kept shrugging off the voice because I didn't understand what I was hearing and why.

About six weeks after I returned from the worshop, the children's pastor stepped down! Oh my goodness...this wasn't happening, right?! But it had nothing to do with me...I wasn't qualified to take his place! So I didn't say anything to the pastor. Three months went by and it was decided that no one would be hired to replace him in January when the new budget took effect. I thought they must have flipped - no one replace him...what's going on?! But I finally could not stand it anymore. One day I finally sent a long letter to the pastor telling me what I'd been experiencing, and that I felt like God was telling me to take over the children's ministry! I was stunned when he said he agreed that it seemed like God was using me and leading me to do something so we approaced it slowly and experimentally for a while. By six months it was clear. I was the children's minister for almost four years!

I didn't want to work with children! I went to one worship conference and it changed my direction in the life of my church! God used something I did for good and though in time I could see the good in my life - it was initially for the good of the church and the children. We jsut never know what the heck God's up to!

So how and what does any of this have to do with God using all things, even death, for the good of those that love him? Well, like I say, God is the same. He doesn't change - never! He does have good to come from Vinnie's death. It may not be for my pleasure (and his death is not for my pleasure - for sure. It's very painful!) but the ways God will use his death and the change in my life, it will be for His glory and it will eventually be a WOW experience - one that we all look back on with amazement to see how God would use the past and present things in my life to get on with the future, a future that promises to hold great things that will bless others. It helps me to know this truth because I know that Vinnie's death will not be in vain. It helps me to know that Vinnie's death could lead to so many people being blessed and even coming to knowing Jesus. This would thrill Vinnie to pieces!

I've had several ideas come to mind about how God would use my experiences in grief and all the other experiences I've had in this lifetime and how God would bring them all together to bless many lives around the world. I won't share them yet but I believe God does have a plan, a very exciting plan, one that will allow many people to learn to grow through their suffering, will help them know Jesus, and will bring more people into God's Family. I hope you'll join me in praying for God to reveal what His plan is and to give me wisdom to discern what it is so I won't miss the doors that open in that direction! Because my life is no longer mine but His, He has a plan and purpose for it, I am to live for is will not mine, and though my sorrow is as deep and painful now as it was two months ago, I can and will still know joy. My joy comes from the Lord and from living for Him, not myself. I am so thankful to know the joy of living a life much less selfish than the one I used to have, even though it means having great losses along the way. I know that God's plan is awesome and I am honored to play my part in His story!

Discovering My New Husband

2008-11-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

Who would have thought back in 1951 when the little guy on the left was born that he's die such a painful death and would leave this planet just 56 years later?

During the time Vinnie and I were married, we had many dreams. We had plans, goals, and tasks we shared. He usually washed dishes for instance, and while he was a wonderful cook, and did cook once in awhile, especially when we had company, I did most of the cooking - he cleaned up. I cleaned the house and he took care of all home repairs and car maintenance. I did most of the grocery shopping although we loved to shop together. The only problem there is that we'd over spend when he did the shopping or when we went together. He did the bookkeeping and I took care of the kids needs (pack back packs, make lunches, that sort of thing) and I did the laundry.

I suppose you might be getting the idea - I've lost not only my friend, my buddy, but also the one who helped me get a lot of things done around the house and in our family. Until one is suddenly left alone, there's little thought to the fact that all the things done before still have to get done (take out the trash and take it to the dump once or twice a week, mow the lawn, cut the hedges - the list goes on!) but now it is done by just one person. It's difficult to figure out how to get it all done, especially when life goes on and on and before you know it, when you haven't figured out how to get it all done, it all piles up! That's kind of where I am now. I could use a week off to catch up!

So I am missing my husband for many reasons but I keep coming back to this one verse in Scripture. "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." I think God really wants me to chew on this because it keeps showing up. My girlfriend just sent this to me last night in the context of an email! I love that! God has ways of speaking to us and getting our attention! It's so cool! This verse is cool because it says God is a lot more than just a Husband. Can any of you say all these things about your earthly husband? No! Let's look at all God is to us.

Maker/Husband: God is our maker. He knows EVERYTHING about us - everything! And a husband sees his bride as beautiful, lovely, breathtaking. God sees me that way too! I am not beautiful in the earthly sense (although my sweet Vinnie thought I was beautiful!) but when looks at me covered in the blood of His son, Jesus, he sees me as one of the most pure and lovely women here! The Maker is my Husband. No husband on earth can know all there is to know about us, girls. I have told countless young wives to stop hoping their husband will figure out that they'd like to be surprised by roses on occasion. If you want flowers, don't hint and then wonder why he didn't get it! Just ask. Just tell him what you'd like. He will love that you didn't make him guess. But the Father in Heaven knows us through and through. He made us! He knows what we will absolutely love better than we know about ourselves! That's a wonderful husband!

the LORD Almighty is his name - Imagine being the wife of the president of the USA, one of the most powerful men on earth. Now imagine being the wife of someone even more powerful that! Imagine being the wife of THE most powerful, the one whose name is above all others, one so powerful, He oversees ALL things and all at the same time too! Now there's a powerful husband. Let me tell you - the wife of such a husband is pretty important! So am I. I play a role in the big scheme of things that is just as vital as any leader over this country. I am not important in and of myself, but my husband is LORD Almighty. I am honored to be his special beloved!

the Holy One of Israel - Because I really miss Vinnie and am magnifying the best things about him and our relationship as I write in this blog, you haven't heard much about the unholy Vinnie. He was hooked on old movies. He was sometimes short tempered. He was not always able to or patient enough to understand me or one of his kids. He had, like all humans in this earthly state, was imperfect. I excused his lack of perfections as he excused and had grace for me in mine. But I am wife of one who is never unholy! He is always pure, true, lovely, and perfect! Wow...even though I am not perfect, there's so much grace for me that He loves me anyway, and He remains pure.

your Redeemer - This is my favorite part! A redeemer back in Biblical days (and maybe it's still a practice somewhere in the world today) is one who buys a person out of slavery. They might do a number of things to achieve this but the end result is the same - someone is set free. I've given a lot of thought to this idea in times past. I've thought about if I was a slave to a master that I'd been a slave to my whole life and all of a sudden one day, someone tells me that I am no longer a slave! I think I would be lost. I would not know else to do except be a slave. In that moment I think I would probably want to find the person who set me free and be his slave. After all, if you only knew how to be a slave, wouldn't you want to be slave to one who wanted you to be free? I would! I can picture myself running after the redeemer and begging him to let me serve him all the rest of my days!

Well, truth is that I have been a slave. My master at one time was drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, immorality and all the things of the world. I was under it's command on my life and I was it's slave. Then Jesus revealed himself and told me what He'd done for me - that he had set me free, and I wanted nothing more than to be his servant. But this redeemer, with so much love for me that he gave up His life to set mine free, is my Husband!

The last concept of Husband that comes to mind is that of an intimate relationship. God wants an intimate relationship with me. In the Garden of Eden, God walked amongst Adam and Eve. Imagine seeing God with our own eyes walking right next to us? It's breathtaking! Because we live in a fallen world, He cannot walk with us like that (yet) but through the person of Jesus, we can experience God as our Husband. He desires us to know Him in the most intimate ways. We grow in this intimacy through a life of prayer and being attentive to the ways he speaks to us throughout the day and reading His word. I've called on God at times when I was so desperate for Him that I could literally feel arms around me!

God isn't going to come down and wash my dishes for me or check my car or take the trash to the dump! He's not going to climb into bed and rub his soft feet over mine, he's not going to have quiet conversations with me in a beach chair while waves wash over us. But God does 'talk' to us. I've heard him tell me to turn to certain passages in the Bible. I've heard Him tell me that Vinnie was going to die and He even told me 6 months ahead of time what month it was going to happen. I've had to develop 'ears' to hear him and recognize His voice. It's not audible with human ears but is the whisper of a Husband always audible? How many times did I know Vinnie was saying, "You are the love of my life" and words never spilled out of his mouth?!

I am not saying it's easy to adjust to having a Husband now with so many challenges in the way of experiencing Him. I wish I'd been more able to know the joy in knowing God as my Husband long before I lost my Vinnie. I might be more practiced at it now that I really need to know Him in this way now. But now is better than never! I have a Husband who's perfect, who knows me more than I know myself, who is never about His personal gain, who loves me beyond my wildest desires, and set me free from bondage to the things that would eternally destroy my chances of ever knowing Him. And because of that, I will one day be with my Vinnie again too. Now THAT is a package deal, isn't it?!

If you are wishing for a more perfect husband, ladies, know this - you will NEVER find him here! Some may come close but for all the little ways he doesn't make the mark, there is the Perfect One ready to fill your heart in the sweetest ways. Every missing aspect of your earthly one can be found in your Heavenly one! You may just need some help dusting off the antennas to know where He is and how He wants to satisfy you completely! Join me on the journey of discovering who our Husband is!

More verses on God as our Husband.

John 3:29
The bride belongs to the bridegroom.
Isaiah 61:10
I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Revelation 19:7
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
Revelation 21:2
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
Revelation 21:9
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb."
Revelation 22:17
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

Just The Way It Is - NOW!

2008-11-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

Here's Vinnie 30+ years ago in the US Army. What a handsome guy, right?

I have had an amazing week. It started out so sad, exhausting, almost depressing. I seemed to cry at every turn last week and I was beginning to wonder if it were really possible for me I live without Vinnie. But Thursday I had a few events suddenly change course - you know those days where you think something is going a certain direction, you proceed to do all the things that it takes to get the task done, you think all along how awesome God is that He put such a perfect plan together - and all of a sudden, the door SLAMS shut! That was my Thursday.

While the day started out sad as did the other days of this past week, I suddenly found myself asking God, "What's going on? Why did you do this? I am not upset, in fact, I am sure you shut this door but I sense you are trying to teach me something here. Please show me what it is!" I began to think about the fact that I am bull headed sometimes. If I see a need, I sometimes don't wait on God - oh, I do pray about it, but since I am so sure something needs to be done and no one else is going to do it (of course, ha! ha!) then I best get all the steam I can power up and Gooooo! That's me! So by the time I went to bed on Thursday, I was doing a lot of talking to God. I also attended my Thursday night GriefShare group and came away realizing that in fact, I can and will, live my life without Vinnie. It is possible and will happen, because God took Vinnie and left me here. It's that simple. That's the way it is now.

So Friday night, just to add some frosting to the cake, I had a friend over for dinner. We had a wonderful time to together, as we often do when we get girlfriend time with each other. But one question she asked me kept haunting me the rest of the night. You see I've been trying to help my daughter and her family find a new place to rent. I've gone out of the way to search, make phone calls, and basically run myself ragged over it. Why, she asked, are you dong all this work? (you probably are asking too, right?) Well, it appears that bad habits over the years have reigned and I do some things like I've always done them, forgetting that my daughter is 24 now, quite responsible, and able to do this on her own! What's the matter with me?! I know - I am a sinner. I have fears, I have a lot of fears. That's the lesson for this week! If I am controlled by my fears and habits, how can I also submit to God? I can't! The result? I will not see what amazing answer God can provide!

I have often thought it interesting that God put Jesus in the home of a carpenter. Jesus learned to build with wood. He's not here physically now but He still builds - He builds His people, layer by layer, step by step, piece by piece; He builds us into a sanctuary where God can dwell! When I look back (and it is crucial to do this at times!) on how God's built my faith, I am in awe. Here's an example.

One time when I was still a pretty young Believer, we had a friend work on our roof. Midway through the project, he got called away and could not come back for a week. My husband was also out of town that week for a few days and would you know - it rained, no - POURED - all week long! The tarp used to cover the unfinished work on the roof had blown off and guess what started to happen? You got it - it started to pour inside too! One strip of ceiling, from one end of the house to the other started leaking. I had several buckets and bowls in two of the bedrooms and some in the stairway too. I was so afraid the whole ceiling would crumble to the floor. The money we were trying to save by doing the roof ourselves was going to cost us more than we'd ever be able to afford to fix. I was so upset!

I sat on the stairway crying my head off and my oldest daughter who about 10 at the time, said something like, "Mom, I think we need to pray that God would move the storm so the roof will not be able to leak anymore." I said something along the lines of, "That's ridiculous! You heard the weather report on TV this morning. This is slow moving storm and won't be gone for another two days!" She reminded me that Jesus moved a storm when he was on a boat with the disciples and he could move this storm too - if we just had faith. She insisted that God wanted us to have the faith to pray this. I told her that if SHE had the faith, she could pray. I'd pray with her but I was not able to ask for this, she'd have to. She did pray, it was a sweet prayer. We got up and put more buckets around the house. About 15 or 20 minutes later, it seemed as though the rain was not coming down as heavy. It seemed as though the clouds were not quite so dark and heavy. And..honest to God, in 30 minutes it stopped raining! I could not believe my own eyes!!! Just for fun, I wanted to see if the weather channel had picked up on this small pocket of the world no longer having a storm that was to last two more days. Even they were amazed at how fast, all of a sudden, "that storm moved out to sea!"

I have countless stories like this! I could write a whole blog or even a book on the many specific things we felt compelled to pray over the years - big things, little things - and God answered them. (I should interject here that God sometimes answer prayer with a "NO!" or a "Wait" but he does always answer). I can't go into more of them now. But I tell you this to make a point. God builds our faith by showing us He's faithful in little things and then a little bigger things, and then even bigger things. I hope you get the idea here. He builds us in strength too - a little here and there and more and more as each new need for strength arises. He does it with perseverance, and so many other things. He builds us to be temples of the Living God, one layer at at time.

I should know by now that if I have faith, and my daughter has faith, even if bad things fall on her or her family - God is in control! He wants to build their faith, the kid's faith, her faith, her husband's faith. Gosh, as He works in their lives, He is still building more of my faith! Maybe when Vinnie was here, we didn't turn to God every single time we should have. We didn't have to. He was there to the rescue. I am not saying he wasn't suppose to fill that role for us - yes, he was our protector. He just did too good a job at it! And I've been doing the same thing since Vinnie was sick - running like a bull to fix it, take over, and take charge. I have prevented either of us from seeing what amazing things God would do in a difficult situation. (The picture below is Vinnie before marriage - a long haired clown!)

But here's the deal - that was then and THIS is NOW. Just as I have to spend time now discovering how God is to be a Husband to me now that Vinnie is gone, so my daughter has to discover in a deeper, more real and consistent way, how God is a Father to her now that Vinnie is gone. He's been building our faith to get us to this point. I can trust he will take care of her, her children, her family. I can trust He will take care of me and will fill every single area of my life once consumed in Vinnie. No need for fear. There is instead a need for faith - a new layer of faith, a layer that is built on all the other layers God's built in me, in us, in times past, because after all - that's just the way it is NOW! It's not Biblically true that God doesn't give us more than we can handle! It seems to me that God often times gives us more than we can handle! But He gives us more when He's proven Himself in the layer before and the layer before that, etc. He builds this so we will see that He can and will use the present (key word here-present, NOW) for HIS glory and our good. It's too easy to think life's all about me/us. It's about Him and He wants to be glorified. He gives us more than we can handle because he's trying to get people like me to stop being bull headed and storm through hard times tough as nails fixing everything and keeping myself and others from being hurt and relying on Him too! He's trying to get us to live in the present, not fear the future or expect life will be like it was yesterday! Each day is a new day with new troubles of it's own. He wants us to face life - just the way it is NOW, with faith, with peace, with trust - in Him!

A Solid Living Oak

2008-11-12T19:10:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture I almost forgot about - Vinnie playing with two of our grandchildren.

One of my favorite verses is Psalm 1:3 which reads, "He [the man who delights and meditates in the law of the LORD] is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers"

I love this verse because it is easy to picture a happy, confident tree that stands tall and strong right along the banks of a stream. The rest of the psalm says that this tree has leaves that never wither and it always bears fruit. It's clear after reading this verse that when I am not strong, when I am lacking confidence (not in myself but in God's plan) I am not rooted in Living Water - Jesus!

I remember visiting my sister and her husband's first house. I admired an awesome tree - an oak, I think, right in the middle of the property. It was huge and completely covered in a beautiful vine. I asked her about it and she passed on some interesting information about the tree and the vine that I easily forgot - until now, now that Vinnie is gone. Someone told her that she had to be careful how she removed the vine off the tree. The vine was so deeply rooted to the tree that to simply chop it off, the tree would die. Interestingly enough, if the vine didn't get cut, the tree would die anyway. I find it amazing to realize that if the vine stayed entangled on the tree, the tree would die (and the vine would too eventually). But if the vine was not removed gradually, both would die anyway.

I never thought about that story during the five or six years that have passed since seeing the tree. The picture of this tree popped into my mind from out of the blue one day recently when I was praying for God to show me how to disentangle myself from various things in my life that Vinnie and I took on together but they were just too big to tackle alone. It seems pretty clear now that I've had time to think about this visual picture of a tree and a vine choking each other out, that there are many things that we can allow to strangle us. Some things may have been strangling us for years and we never saw it before, not quite, anyway, and once it is seen, especially if it involves another person or people, it can be very difficult to cut the strangling vine off! The vine might be a dependent adult child, or debt, or a lie that a family has kept a secret for years. It can be anything! I am on the hunt to recognize now, vines that may be trying to snuff me out. Really, it would be easy at this stage of my life to give up on life and wither away. After all, I'd get to be with Vinnie again - a lot sooner! But then there are people I want to remain alive for so I have to keep on living and living well.

In order to live well, I must not only plant my roots near Living Water (remain planted in God's Word) but also be aware of vines (sins and traps of Satan) that are attempting to snuff me out, choke me to death, and make the journey terribly painful in the process. The Bible puts it like this in 1 Peter 5:8 "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." If you've been looking for roaring lions, look out - it could be quiet, pretty little vines taking root in your life that will choke you out instead!

A woman at GriefShare quoted a saying for me one night. I can't remember exactly how it goes but the jest of it goes something like this - if you have an adult dependent on you, you are probably in the way of God. How's that for a powerful, convicting piece of truth?! I have had adults dependent on me in the past and am working on getting one more pealed off me now. It is important if I am to live and go on living. It's important for the other person because they too will die although it may feel like they are dieing while I snip them off me. And it's important that I get out of the way of what God wants to do with their life and mine! I wish I'd seen all this before Vinnie died because it would make it so much easier to move on with my life now. The person I am struggling with would probably have a kinder view of where I am at in this season of my life too - wondering who I am without my Vinnie. They seem clueless that there should be any struggle what so ever in my life - but I didn't see it before. I see it now. And isn't that how God works - in layers? I told you yesterday - layers like onions and onions stink! These hard things in life stink too but they are necessary to living well, living strong, bearing fruit and having meaning in life.

I am not sure sometimes what are all the things I am sad about in this time of my life - missing Vinnie or missing the old way of life, sadness to have to find a new way of life, losing the buddy that helped me think through everything - we thought everything out together. It's a combination of all these things I guess. But just as losing Vinnie is part of the journey God destined for me before I was even born, so is the release from things that keep me in the way of what God wants to do in my life, and stay out of the way of what God wants to do in the lives of those around me - especially those I am close to. It's a constant struggle to be in the right center, the right place with God and his world everyday, but if we are to live, really live, we must persevere to win the race we are asked to run (and win!).

Like the vine on my sister's tree, though, removing the 'stuff' in our lives that choke us, drown us, or weigh us down cannot always been done quickly. There is a measure of patience required to do it in a way that makes us come out healthy and repaired in the end. If you are one to pray for others, pray for me that I will be patient in this season - with my own healing and in relationships that need to get healthier in my life. I pray that I will become a strong, confident fruit bearing tree who draws it's strength from the source of Living Water, with leaves that never wither and without vines to choke me out to drown!

Finding My True Identity

2008-11-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

Now that there are no more phone calls asking about Michael, all the kids have gone back to school and work, friends have returned to their families, I find myself feeling much like I did when Vinnie died. The only difference is, that now that Vinnie's been gone longer and now Michael is gone too, I realize I've had quite a bit of security stored up in these guys and it's making me miss them even move. I had comfort knowing that I could call Michael after Vinnie died, if I really needed help with something so he took the edge off of that part of missing Vinnie (to some extend anyway). Mikey would go out of his way to do almost anything for one of his sisters, and he would have gone out of his way to help me too, now that his dad was gone. In fact, he was suppose to meet me the day after he died. We were going to get all the wood flooring Vinnie bought for the old house and bring it to my new house. He was going to lay the flooring for me (well, eventually - or at least show me how to do it so I could finish it) and I, without thinking about it, I was looking forward to his company, and chatting with his wife Stephanie while we worked on the floor together. I am sad that ths plan will never happen. I know there are people who have said if I need anything, not to hesitate to call. Do you really mean it - anything? I just can't picture people dropping their lives to do something for me. It's not possible. I know folks want to help, but when it comes right down to it, they have lives, sports and dance with their kids, events to attend, meetings to have with teachers, homework to help with, weekends to spend with their families here, out of state, or just a get away with their spouse. Don't forget, I was married too - for 25 years. I am the one that doesn't have "a life" right now. At least, I am realizing I need to make a life, a new one, with friends who don't have to be home for their husbands and children. I need a life that doesn't cost anything either - because there's nothing extra in the budget to take up a hobby or a special monthly something. It's looking pretty bleak right now. (The picture above is Vinnie and me at my daughter Amy's wedding earlier this year, and below is the two of us with Amy and her new husband Mike.)

I am not really feeling sorry for myself. I really am not. I am, however, wondering what my life is supposed to look like. I just am swimming around in dark water. I can't see anything very clearly. I want my life to have some purpose and I can see I've put a lot of stock in being Vinnie's wife and the life we had together, and now it's all changed. I am not sure what my life is supposed to look like now.

I couldn't help but think of Job today. Job (rhythms with the word probe) is a book in the Bible about a man with the same name - Job. Job is a righteous man who is wealthy with a large family and servants. Satan tells God that Job would not be such a righteous man if all his wealth and belongings were taken away (I am paraphrasing her, big time!). God knows that's not true, so when Satan asks, God allows all of Job's family and possessions to be taken away (for a season, but Job, of course, doesn't know that). I was wondering what Job thought about during those days when all of his possessions, servants, and children are taken from him. Surely my losses and grief are nothing compared to losing everything. I wondered if Job wondered what to do with his time, if he felt challenged to manage his time differently, or orchestrate his day differently. The Bible doesn't say. I do know in the end, after also suffering from terrible pain and illness, he confesses to God that it is not his place to question the God of all creation about anything God does. I know the point of the story reminds us that God's purpose in allowing things in our lives goes beyond what we can see or understand. I doubt Job knew about the conversation God had with Satan, for instance - the conversation that started the whole mess for Job. God knows the big picture and we never will while we are here on earth, therefore there is little point in questioning. In Job's life, he has all his wealth and livestock and children and servants all replaced ten fold in the end of the story. I am not sure if God will restore what I've lost but I know that all this has a purpose and my life is going to have purpose again one day. I need to simply wait to see what God has in store for me. I am not good at waiting.

I don't mean to get caught up in the book of Job, although he has always been an encouragement to me, and continues to be during my own tragic time. I am feeling especially sad today (and yesterday). I've learned in GriefShare that grieving happens in layers - kind of like an onion. There are many things we miss about a lost love one, their company, their help, their income, their encouragement, their love, their strength, their talents, their abilities, and the list goes on. As I sit with a mountain of receipts on the table and bank reconciliation that need to be done for August, September, and October, I am again missing another part of Vinnie - the bookkeeping expert. As I look at (and smell) the old carpet in my new house, I miss the handy man. And when I walk on the carpeted bathroom floor, I realize that dozens of friends got tile on their floors and even their counters and showers, but I never will. I am missing another layer, another skin of the onion. And...onions stink! (Here's Vinnie with our youngest grandson.)

Being a widow - it's hard adjusting. It's just hard to think of your life being so different from just a few months ago. I am still Vinnie's wife but without the luxury of having Vinnie here. Being a widow is not only being asked to get used to not having my Vinnie around here any more, but also to depend and rely on God every single day for every single thing. There is no one else to rely on anymore. Every day I must depend on Him and Him alone. That is what we are called to live our lives like in Christ anyway, isn't it? If I'd done a better job of learning this before Vinnie died, I'd probably struggle less with it now! But perhaps just as grieving happens in layers, so does our dependency on God. His grace allows us to understand new layers of our relationship with him in each season of life. That is His grace. He allows us to take one step and one layer at a time.

I know I will be OK, and I will discover what my new life is suppose to look like in time. It helps me to think these things through and to write them down and "listen" to myself. Of course, it helps to keep praying too - praying for daily bread, for protection (I relied on Vinnie for that too!), for joy, for peace, for security, for EVERYTHING! I suppose it is significant that I approach this season of grief at the same time as we begin the winter season soon. The seasons always remind us that our lives go in seasons too and just as this is a darker season in my life right now, life seemingly dies (but it's not really dead) and then comes to life again, fresh, brilliant, with more light, it even smells wonderful. Just as there is winter, there will be spring in my life too. I just have to get comfortable about waiting.

Promises I must cling to:

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Matthew 6:25-34 25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Wow...What A Big Family!

2008-11-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

Pictures in today's post are more from Vinnie's celebration of life party. So many people loved Vinnie!

Before I begin writing the story God's put on my heart to write tonight, I want to emphasize something...this blog, these stories are NOT about Vinnie, me, or anyone in our little family. In fact, even the post I am about to write, though it may seem like I am writing about people, I am NOT. I am writing about God. That is very important to understand. This is not about me. It is not about me being inspirational or encouraging. It is about God, it's about HIM being inspirational and He wants YOU to be encouraged and reminded that He still wants to work in people's lives. He is the one who gives Hope even in the most difficult situations. This blog is about God and how He can take broken cisterns like Vinnie, me, Michael, and all the rest of our children (and you and yours) and turn them into a new creation in Christ. I know with all confidence, that Vinnie and Michael would be thrilled to know that others can know what accepting the gift of Jesus in their lives has done for them, and those around them. These guys may be in Heaven applauding the ability God's given me to write about Him! Don't miss that! This is about God, not us. If you missed that - please stop right now and read again from the beginning!

I promised my husband before he died, that I would somehow find a way to allow people to continue to be encouraged about God by hearing how God worked in our challenging life together. I made this promise to Vinnie because we both knew and I know, that we aren't special. We've always known that if God was willing to do it for us, He is certainly willing and able to do it for many, many others. It's a world full of people with problems bigger than the size of Texas, and they don't know what to do with them. It is my prayer that this blog reaches and encourages as many people as God wants it to reach. It is after all, His story! I have very deliberately not mentioned our last names, the city I live in or even the name of my church. Those who know me, know many of the stories or some of them already and it helps to piece them together to see a clearer, bigger picture of our lives. But for those who don't know us personally, you don't need to know our full names, etc. It's not about us! I am thankful for modern technology that allows me this media to communicate God's story in our lives to others. For close friends and family this does provide opportunities to reflect and remember sweet times, but please let it also be a time to give praise to God. Look what He's done over the years! It's a miracle! OK. Let me proceed now to tell you about some awesome people - God's people!

I remember Vinnie and I wondering once in awhile if we should visit other churches. After all, we practically grew up in the church where we truly began our journey with God. My guess is that is a natural earthly desire to wonder if there is a benefit to shopping around. I suppose that comes from our society, always thinking that there is bigger, better, and greener on the other side of the fence. But in God's world, there is no fence - God's people are part of one BIG family!

When Vinnie first found out that he had cancer, he would tell me about emails that he received at work from people he'd never met from countries all over the world! That is the Body of Christ! Vinnie and I have been so blessed to be have Brothers and Sisters in Christ who have come along side us in difficult times to help in a multitude of ways over the years. The church family we go to church with and the small groups we've 'done life with' have been amazing! I remember Vinnie saying once, "Well, I guess if anything ever happened to me...[our church] would take good care of you, wouldn't they?" Well, yes, I figured they would because Sisters and Brothers in Christ long to live by the Word of God and see the Word of God made manifest in their lives. In 1 Timothy 5:3 it says, "Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need." I know that the people in our church want to be sure that their widows are taken care if they need to be taken care of. Let me tell you how awesome is the Body of Christ in my life!

When Vinnie had his second surgery which was suppose to be the removal of his bladder and prostate and a reconstruction of an artificial bladder, there were many people praying from home for the surgery to go well and for fast healing. But when we found out that the kidney also had to be removed and that it was not going to be possible to reconstruct the bladder, we called the church. Within one hour, there all kinds of people who dropped everything to come pray and be an encouragement to my family. That week people were sending me gift cards so we would could eat at and stay longer at the hospital. When we did go home, there were families that cooked and delivered hot meals day after day. That is a tradition at our church. Bringing meals to a family is a sign of love and concern. Even when a family has a baby, there are families that bring meals from the day the baby arrives home and it goes on for weeks!

The Bible tells us that we are all individual parts of one big body and that Jesus is the head. (1 Corinthians 12:12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.) When Vinnie had pain in his physical body, it effected how well he could function during the day. It is the same with the Body of Christ. If one part of the body is sick, the rest of the Body needs to pitch in to get the weakened part strong again. It is an awesome thing and thanks be to God - it works!

When Vinnie came home from the hospital, I eventually had to go back to work. I only had so much time I could take off. There were people who would come and visit with Vinnie during the day or in the evenings if I had something I had to go do. Occassionally I've had someone volunteer to clean my house. When we learned that Vinnie was going to die from the cancer, we decided to move to an apartment where it would be quieter and there would be less things to take care of. We rented our home to my daughter and her family. The moment I put up a request for help to move, we were overwhelmed by the multitude of people who were ready to help. I was even approached that day by a couple that I'd never met before who heard about our need for help, and they pitched right in. We had meals delivered, we had ladies helping to pack the old place, unpack the new place, clean cabinets, drawers, bathrooms, and people moved furniture all day long. There was enough help to not only move Vinnie and me to the apartment but also to move all my daughter's things in from storage and it all happened in one day! Lunches and dinners were provided for days! Vinnie was on disability then earning 70% of his regular pay and I had stopped working in the last month to take care of him and I didn't get paid during that time. We never made an announcement about our financial needs during that time, but as people prayed about how God might want them to help us, He must have told some families to give us money. I received gift cards to grocery stores, checks in the mail to pay for medical needs, light bills, and whatever we needed. It was amazing!

After Vinnie died, the love and care of the church did not cease for weeks! In fact, on occassion I still will receive a love offering given when someone feels like God prompted them to give. It always seems to be just the right amount to cover something that I wasn't sure how I'd cover it. I am amazed at the generosity of the church, and the sense of Family that overwhelms it's members when there is a true understanding of being One. I am still blown away when I see the Word of God made flesh in the many parts of the Body of Christ. I am blessed to have been on the end of the giver and the end of the receiver and both are a blessing. If you want to know more about this experience of the Body of Christ, or you are curious to know more about what it means to have a PERSONAL relationship with Him, please email me. I'd love to tell you more about it. Maybe my next blog will tell you about how Vinnie and I became Beleivers. God's done amazing things in our family in this regard. Again, they are stories of what God can do - turn prideful hearts of stone into hearts and lives of clay ready to be molded into the people He created us to be! My email is cardsender51@yahoo.com. Please feel free to drop me a personal note. I would love nothing more than to be used by God to help you understand how you too may come to know Jesus is a real and personal way, and to allow Him to show you who and what purpose He has created you for.

I am blessed that I have not had to travel any of the difficult things in my life of the last 14 years alone. I've had Vinnie, my family, my church Family, and God and His Word to speak to me and comfort me and take care of me. But it's not because of who I am. It is not even because the people around me are great (at least not on their own). It is about the Giver of Life who pours out his spirit of blessings on his children and shows them how this blessing is to also bless others. I am humbled and in awe that God would adopt me into His amazing Family (Ephesians 1:5 "he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will...") but I thank Him daily that He has!

Ready To Get Married...How We Met

2008-11-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

No, I am not hoping to get married again! I was just getting your attention with the name of this post! I guess I am taking on one of the traits I learned from Vinnie the joker!

I was having dinner at a friend's house on Vinnie's birthday, Oct 30, just two days before Michael died. Her daughters ate with us and asked me how I met Vinnie. I love telling this story. Even though this blog is meant to tell of my life in the season I was becoming a widow and what God will unfold for my life now that I am one, I also believe it is of interest to others to know how we met. The picture to the left is from our wedding day, June 7, 1983.

Vinnie called me a flower girl because I wore what he considered to be weird clothes. I wore cotton wrap around skirts, eyelet cotton blouses, and sandals. OK. I know what you are thinking...flower girl, right? Well, perhaps a flower girl personality still lingered from the hippie teen age years, but come on, now, we were entering disco days...I was maturing!

Actually, when I turned 18, I left upstate New York to visit an experimental alternative school in Southern Ontario. I ended up living there for two years and discovered I was a pretty good cook. I cooked for the 220 or so students and staff there and taught many troubled young people how to cook. When my visa could no longer be renewed, I was bound for New York again, and became an assistant manager in a summer resort where I worked for 4 years. The last year or two there, I managed the entire kitchen staff, ordering, dishwashers, service staff, and the bakers. I loved it. But as I started getting close to 24, I had a strong urge to have children and start a family. The young man I'd dated for 4 or 5 years was never going to get around to marrying any time soon, so one fall, I decided to see what city life might hold for me.

I moved to Massapequa, Long Island, New York, and rented a house with some friends of mine on a street called, Pirate's Cove. Who wouldn't have wanted to live there?! It was on the bay and really gorgeous. I worked a few months for a friend who owned a successful nut company, but after the holidays, I hit the streets to see if I could find a job in an office. I was afraid that if I pursued a career as a cook, I'd never keep hours that would allow me to be a good mother, so I thought I'd explore my talents in administration.

I went to one particular company, a mortgage serving company, for an interview one day. They were hiring for a clerical assistant. It didn't pay much but I was hoping for fast opportunities that might open up if I could get my foot in the door of the right place. Well, I had no idea what new opportunities would await me a year down the road, so I went for the interview. I was interviewed by an older lady and a handsomely dressed man with a funny accent. His name was Vinnie...my Vinnie. I actually thought he was a bit weird but who cares...I only had to work for him eight hours a day, right? Besides, Annette was my real boss. But Vinnie was nice to work for and we even became friends over time. I discovered that his wife had recently left him for a good friend of his who was also married to a relative of his. What a family mess. I felt sad for him. He had two kids and was really torn up about the whole thing. I can't blame him!

I was still pretty involved in the process of getting my ex-boyfriend off my trail. He was driving me a bit nuts - of course, he still didn't want to get married and I was tired of waiting! When it was quiet in the office, we'd talk about our love life dramas and give each other a boost of encouragement. (Imagine that?! We didn't know it then, but we were destined to do that for many years!) I also didn't own a car in those days. Pubic transportation on Long Island transportation was excellent. L.I. was a scary place to drive anyway. But sometimes if it was cold or late when I left work, Vinnie or one of the other co-workers would drive me to the train station. Everyone lived near one!

One week there was a special project going on at work. Everyone was offered the opportunity to work 20 extra hours that week - 4 hours after regular hours each day that week. I needed the extra cash so I asked for someone to commit to give me a ride to the train station every night. Vinnie offered. When we were at the end of the project that week, Friday rolled around, and Vinnie and I got in his car, headed for the LIRR. As we pulled out of the parking lot, he asked me what I was going to do when I got home. I think I told him I would probably eat a sandwich and watch an old movie. He asked me if I liked French food. Did someone tell him that? French food was my all time favorite. I lived in Canada, remember? Some of the best cooks I worked with there were from Quebec. Apparently Vinnie loved French food too and didn't want to eat alone. He was treating to dinner, so why not?

Somewhere in the midst of fresh made Caesar salad and liver pate' I began to realize that Vinnie I had been growing into a bit more than just a friendship. I hadn't noticed, after all, wasn't this the weird dude that interviewed me? When I had gotten hired, I was relieved that at least I'd get to work with Annette! Now I was not a Christian then, but I heard a little voice just the same, and it told me that Vinnie was the man I was meant to marry! (The picture to the right is of Vinnie and me shortly after we were engaged. We loved the smurfs so I created smurf costumes. At this costume party, a monk performed a mock wedding to prepare us for the 'big day' we were planning!)

It took Vinnie a little longer to see it but we got engaged about 9 months after we'd met, and married about 9 months after that. About nine months after that we had Amy!

When Amy was 13 months old, Vinnie was offered a job working for his boss's son in Florida. We walked the beach every day. It was one of the most incredible years of my life. But 1 1/2 years after that we moved back to NY when the new boss lost his business and Vinnie was out of work. Shelly was born just before we moved. Five years after we were married, we bought our first house - a handy man special. Vinnie really hadn't done a lot of handy man work but he was confident that he could figure it out. He was so adventurous and never seemed to fear anything!
Here's a picture of him working on on our first house.

We lived there for five years. That had been the longest I'd lived anywhere since I left home! Vinnie had made it a beautiful home but as the girls were starting to go to school, we started wondering if we really wanted to stay on Long Island. Vinnie worked really far away. One day when it snowed, it took him six hours to get home from work. My childhood desire to move south when I grew up was beginning to rekindle and Vinnie loved the idea of living in a more wholesome area. Five years later, we moved to NC and stayed here until Vinnie went to be with the Lord in our real Home. I consider NC to be the home I will live in until I join Vinnie in Heaven.
Here's are some pictures of Vinnie with the girls at our home in NY.

Now, the last picture on this post is important. It's the evidence of how one man who was always dressed in a three piece suit at worked and creased jeans on the weekends, (yes, creased jeans!) went to becoming not only a handyman in dirty sweats and T-shirts, but became a camping, bear chested poolside laid back southern boy (well, he was from Southern Italy, right?!) I always thought it was so cool!

Deep Sorrow Times Three

2008-11-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

I was going to write my next story about my girls, Amy and Shelly tonight, but it was also the night I was thinking about what the small memorial service for Michael will look like tomorrow. Michael's wife, Stephanie, is still in the hospital and cannot get out to do a service for him. His sisters and I feel the need to have a smaller, quieter service for him now to hold us over until she can have the service for him that she wants. It's hard to go to work and school acting as if nothing happened. So I've been listening to music and looking at a multitude of pictures of Michael, Michael and his wedding, and Michael and our family. A friend told me the other day in an email that Micheal's death for our family would be so much harder now because he is like losing Vinnie all over again. Mikey was so much like Vinnie in so many ways! They were always the life of a party. I can picture them making a few souls rolling with laughter in their new home! I'm sad that someone in heaven gets to laugh with them and we won't be for a while. I can't help but think of what our holidays will be like this year without them. (The picture above is Vinnie goofing around with his mother visiting from Italy.)

When Vinnie's father was dieing, he died of a failed liver, he'd been in a coma for a few weeks. His mother was grieving terribly and Vinnie wanted to make her laugh. He set his dad up in bed, put his reading glasses on his nose and the newspaper in his hands. He then yelled for his mother to come saying that Daddy wanted her to come see him! She wasn't laughing then and she may not laugh openly now, but I can't help think that she chuckles when she thinks of that day, especially now as she remembers her late son.

We are family full of tradition. I grew up with traditions and let me tell you - Italians have a million of them! When Vinnie and I got married, we created some of our own. As the kids got older, we shifted and made adjustments to these and as they've gone out on their own, we made some new ones. One thing you could say without question about Vinnie and me - we were always adventurous and flexible. Some people don't like change - not even our kids, but we've always liked change. It mixes things up and adds spice to life, we always thought.

Anyway, we have always had a traditional Thanksgiving at my sister's house. Dinner includes turkey, bean casserole, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, mashed rutabaga, gravy, rolls and a variety of pies. Sometimes we've added a ham in the mix too. The Christmas feast was always at my house on Christmas day. It became the tradition to serve Chicken Cordon Bleu for that holiday - always made by Vinnie. Everyone loved his Chicken Cordon Bleu.

I started a new tradition last year when each of the kids were either married or engaged. They were having such a hard time deciding who to have holiday meals with - us or their in-laws/future in-laws. I came up with a great idea - Vinnie and I would have Thanksgiving with my sister like we always did while our kids had Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws. Then our kids would gather for our feast on Friday! Pretty cool idea, don't you think?! Missing two men in this mix this year, plus our Christmas chef changes everything. For someone who's always been so open to change, even in traditions, I sure don't seem very open to the changes coming this year. The picture above is of Vinnie, Chris who is finally my son-in-law, and my nephew Gary. The guys loved sitting around by a fire while they waiting for a holiday feast!

As I think about these things tonight and look at pictures of Michael and Vinnie and family photos of us over the past 13 years we've been a family here, I can't help but fall into deep sorrow all over again. My friend was right. It's like losing Vinnie all over again. Grief is so much sadder than breaking up with an old boyfriend (what I've experienced of lost love before I met Vinnie) because it is so final. The final-ness of death of a loved one is creepy. It's just creepy. Other times when a good friend moves away or perhaps a spouse leaves a marriage (I am guessing here because it's not happened to me) there could be hope that the person will be seen again or will come back to the relationship again. With death, it's over - it's completely over, final. It will not happen ever again. In the situation with Mikey, at least for now, it's especially hard because we don't know or understand how he died. We are still waiting to hear the results of the autopsy report. It was also so unexpected. There were no warning signs what so ever!

It's strange to me that I can go all day at work feeling like I've put my life back together, for the most part. Oh, I admit that on occasion, a glance at Vinnie's tiny picture on my desk makes me get teary eyed (yes, at my desk - but only when no one else is around!) And I can hang out with a friend or two and talk about Vinnie and life when we were together and life without him without shedding a tear. But then there are moments, especially now as I look at pictures of him and Mike and the family, and it's like a truck runs over my heart. I've never cried from such a deep pit of sorrow before in my whole life. I am never going to stop being sad. I've heard some older ladies at the church I work at that I will never get over becoming a widow, it will simply 'get softer'. I think it might become more like getting more comfortable with the sorrow, or at least more expectant of it, more used to experiencing it's reach at the depths of the heart. I felt it when my daughter was filled with sorrow for her dead babies. Experiencing her sorrow that night was the first time I'd really felt the wrench of sorrow myself, both for those babies and my daughter's broken heart. I felt it when my husband stopped breathing yet his heart still beat for another minute or so and then stopped and he was gone. And deep sorrow visits my heart again tonight as I remember all the times we were together as a family. I can only find comfort in a simple song I've been playing over and over again tonight, Give Me Jesus. There is nothing or no one that can fill the hole in my heart these days except the One who promises to satisfy. If I complicate my situation, it is just that, when in fact, it's easier to keep it simple. I can only ask for Jesus. Here are some of the promises I am leaning on as I seek comfort, yet again, from deep sorrow for the third time this year.

From Psalm 139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, I settle on the far side of the sea,10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well....16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be...18b When I awake, I am still with you.

From Jeremiah 29:11-14a 11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity.

From Psalm 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."

The Bitter Sweet

2008-11-04T03:37:00.000-08:00

These are the three grown up kids left in our family - Shelly, the youngest, Amy in the middle, and Christine now the oldest.

When I was a kid I spent many summers, Easter, and Christmas breaks from school with my Aunt Barbara. My mother worked full time to help keep up with the bills and there were no day cares in those days. My aunt lived about a quarter mile from a little corner convenience store. She was a smoker and liked chocolate. Many times she would send me down to the store (I was the oldest of all four kids, hers and my little sister) with a note and money. The note would give the store owner permission to sell me a pack or two of Salem cigarettes and usually a large milk chocolate Hershey bar. My favorite was the dark chocolate Hershey used to make, which back in the day, we called bitter sweet chocolate. Sometimes she'd let me get a small bitter sweet chocolate bar that I ate all by myself because no one else liked it.

Now that I am older (not old yet!) and have found other meanings to the phrase "bitter sweet" I am glad that the bitter sweet chocolate I still enjoy is now referred to as "dark chocolate". I think someone who likes dark chocolate and experienced bitter sweet experiences in their own life came to the conclusion that the chocolate had to be called something else because it is always a good experience. The bitter sweet of life is often times hard to swallow!

Yesterday I told you about Mikey. Today I'd like to tell you about her sister, Christine. (The photo on the left is Christine with Vinnie and me at Vinnie's Celebration of Life party.) She came to America one year after Mikey. She had become a hand full in Italy (what else can I say, here - she was 17) and she wanted to come live here with her brother. She didn't speak any English either but unlike Mikey who spoke English for 8 years of his life before he went back to Italy, Christine was barely talking when she left the USA as a little girl.

Christine is now married with a child from before this marriage, a child with her husband, and three step children from her husband's previous marriage. She loves the Lord and is struggling with the death of Dad, brother, and the usual struggles that come with raising a large family and walking with God is this difficult world we live in! Without telling too much detail about our lives together when she came to live with us, I'll just say that she sure has changed from when she came to America! I could see that God brought her and Mikey here for a purpose. I could see that there were difficult things they had to work through. I also knew that God used all kinds of tragedies in my childhood to shape me into a woman that I actually liked being most of the time. I wanted to pass that on to Mikey and Christine. I especially could see an awesome spirit in them. I believe God gave me a glimpse of who He created them to be. I wanted so much for them to know that part of themselves. Blended families are a challenge in any household and it's normal, under our circumstances, for step children to want to tear a new family apart, and Vinnie and I were hoping they would melt into our family. It sure has taken a long time to get us there!

Just before Vinnie died, Michael and Christine each came to me and asked me to forgive them for any of the ways they have hurt me over the years. They said that their lives really had been changing and that they appreciated everything I tried to do for them. They wanted to have a better relationship with me, especially now that their dad was going to die. Sadly, though I did forgive them, I wasn't sure I was ready to believe them that they were really changing. I'd heard this line before and wasn't ready to surrender my heart to another round of hopeful thinking. I told them that if they wanted to pursue a friendship with me, they would have to start by praying that God would soften my heart. I know they must have. I know others must have been praying for this too. My heart was beginning to change.

By the time Vinnie died, I was beginning to see that perhaps it was true that they were really making an honest effort to seek the Lord in their lives and to want to stay part of the family Vinnie and I wanted us to be so long ago. I could see this not so much in what they said to me at times, but mostly by the way they related to their spouse/future spouse. There was something different thanks to the love of a good church and good Biblical counsel! It's a miracle.

I was thinking about the bitter sweet this morning (that's Christine, her husband Craig and me below)
because I am once again realizing some good that
has come out of all this tragedy. Christine and I have had some wonderful conversations since her dad died and even more heart to heart conversation since Mikey died a few days ago. It's sad that tragedy can be such a major part of what brings us closer together but it does sometimes. It also gives us greater opportunity to draw close to the Lord. Jesus told us to remember him as bread and wine, when we eat and drink to remember him. I guess there was no such thing as bitter sweet chocolate then or it may have been included in the items Jesus would chose to have us remember him. After all, it's usually the bitter things in life that draw us to the sweetest aspects of our relationship with Him. It's probably why the bitter is such an important part of being a Christian. Without it would we really long to cling to Him like when we do when all we've known and loved is gone and we find we only want the love of the One who's love never fails us or leaves us? It is bitter sweet for sure!

A Part of God's Big Story

2008-11-02T17:14:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that I am writing not much past 24 hours since I got the tragic news that my husband's son, Michael, died in his sleep. It is a real shock. We were all in such shock yesterday when we got the news, I don't think any of us believed it was true. But sadly, it is.

Michael was born in New York shortly after Vinnie married his first wife. But when Michael was 7 and his mother left Vinnie, she took him and his sister back to where she was from - Sicily, yes, in Italy. Michael and Christine learned Italian and grew up in the culture of that part of the world, which in many ways, is quite different from here. Their lives weren't simple, to say the least, as they had to adjust to life without their Daddy, never really understanding the truth about where he was and why he wasn't with them.

Christine and Michael grew up differently than Amy and Michelle, the two children that Vinnie and I had, and when Michael was 21, his grandmother sent him to America so he could 'get to know his Daddy again.' We were elated! Vinnie and I hoped for years earlier in our marriage, that his kids would one day be part of our family. We had lost that hope for a while but at age 21 - well, we were thankful to have him with us at all. When Vinnie and I had been married for a year a half, we went to Italy (well, we also traveled throughout Europe) specifically to try and arrange some kind of visitation rights so he could see the kids once in a while. Those arrangements could not be made. (That's a whole other story!)

Michael had been a wild child but we wanted to think that God brought him to us and that there was hope that he would become a new creation in Christ. You know how us Christians think! Well, I'll add here, that he did eventually become that new creation in Christ and now he is as perfect as one can get before we are living together in the New Earth promised in Revelation. But we didn't expect the arrival 'there' to be so long, drawn out and sometimes quite weary. What we quickly learned when Michael came is that he had a drug problem but when we realized this, we hoped we could do something to help.

He could not speak English when he came to us but within a week he had figured out who the gangs are in this town (to all those who know where we live - yes, there are gangs, plural, gangs, in this town). There were fights, car wrecks, and all kinds of stuff to deal with. Our hope for the "little boy to be returned to Vinnie and be part of our happy home" was becoming a nightmare! We were also new Believers. Vinnie had been in seminary most of his youth fulfilling what he thought was a call to be a priest. As a young man he turned from that path and in 1995, shortly after we moved to this area and attended this great church I am still involved in, he realized that what was missing from his experience was a genuine relationship with God, not just knowledge about Him. He made the rest of his life a commitment to grow in the relationship God freely offered him through His Son, Jesus. Our faith was being tested BIG time!

So here we were, new Believers, hoping that the love of Jesus would transform Mikey too. If I went into all the details of the journey with Mikey you all might just get the book you've been telling me I should write - Mikey, Book II! I can't get into all that much detail in this blog but I can tell you this - it was hard, tragic, scary and there were many, many times when we were shocked that Michael was still alive! We couldn't figure out how many lives God would really give one young man! About three years ago he was once again arrested. He was sent to prison for a crime that this time he didn't seem to have really committed. But he was there, struggled, and finally got out two years later. That was about a year and a half ago. He struggled when he got out of prison and had a strong desire to be married and settle down with children. His quest to marry lead him to meet Stephanie, via the Internet.

You see how happy I was for Mikey in the picture above at his wedding, but I was a bit concerned when shortly after they met they were engaged! I believe it was by Christmas (they met that fall) they were planning an October wedding. It turned out that Stephanie was the best thing that ever happened to Mikey. To me she was a wonderful example of being a help mate to him. It was clear, over time, that God had put them together. They were just married three weeks ago yesterday! One week after their honeymoon at a beach along the Carolinas, Stephanie was rushed to the ER. She was having trouble breathing. She been in the hospital for nine days now and is only now beginning to show tiny signs of progress. Michael was very concerned about her. He was afraid she was going to die. He wanted to be a good husband to her too and was discouraged because he was feeling so terribly exhausted. His complaint of exhaustion should have been a red flag for me - Mikey was like the Energizer Bunny - he never ran out of energy! But he'd never been married before either and I figured that he was riddled with worry for his new bride. That alone can take a toll on one's body. I suggested a game plan to get some extra rest that night. I am not sure what time he went home - I hope it was not too late, but he got more rest than I ever expected. He never woke up!

They'd been staying at Stephanie's mother's house. Stephanie's mother had called Michael a few times but he didn't wake up. She finally went in his room and found him not breathing. He's been in a hospital all this weekend while we wait the results of an autopsy report. The doctors at the hospital where Stephanie is think they may have contracted some kind of virus on their honeymoon. They suspect that the virus targeted them in different ways - in the lungs for Stephanie and a different way for Mikey. We won't know until tomorrow.

I've wrestled with God over this for awhile yesterday but have found peace in two things. One, I am called to be thankful IN all things (not necessarily FOR all things). So I thought about all that I am thankful for IN this situation. I am thankful that Mikey came to America, that he has been a major part of our family, and that he did become a new creation in Christ. I am thankful that he didn't die from an overdose of drugs or some other wasteful means. And I am terrible thankful that he died AFTER Vinnie so Vinnie would not have to suffer the loss of his son. Secondly, I am peace with the fact that this and all the events of this life on this earth are all part of one big story - God's story.

I look at my life as a job, after all, aren't we told we would labor all the days of our lives on earth (Genesis 2:19)? In this light, it could be said that I like the career path but not the tasks it takes to get there. The "there" for us as Believers is the New Heaven and the New Earth where God will walk amongst His people. THAT is our true Home! It's what we were made for. Remember in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve heard God walking? (Genesis 2:8 8 "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day...") We were made to live in the most amazingly beautiful place - so beautiful and perfect, God walked there too! This place we live now is NOT it! But the New Earth will come. All this that we know now is part of God's plan to get us and as many others as we can lead to the cross there too! I WILL be together with these recently lost loved ones. We will live where there is no pain, sickness, death, or sorrow. We will. It is what our HOME is like.So why are we left here? Look around. If you think we are the only ones suffering from tragedy, look again. There are hurting people all over the place. How else would the hopeless have hope if not for those of us that do? And how can we give them hope if we ourselves have no idea what it means to suffer too? We need to learn to suffer WITH hope! We are left here for that reason.

I am not an evangelist but I am taking my job pretty serious these days. My husband, his son and my grand babies, Logan and Lauren, are in Heaven now worshiping a worthy God. They want me to join them, even in the most adequate way possible that I can worship while I am still here. God still has work for me to do. I have no choice. I pray God will show me how to know joy in the midst of this sorrow and loss. I pray God shows me where and how I am to show that to others - and not so that I or we can know some kind of awesome everlasting bliss now - but so that we will inherit what's been promised to us who Believe - a HOME with GOD! I am finding it easier now to say, "I'll see you later" because I am beginning to understand what the conclusion of God's big story is and some of what it's going to take to get us all there.

The Ways God Speaks

2008-10-31T15:46:00.000-07:00

For years before our 25th wedding anniversary, Vinnie and I dreamed of going on a cruise in Alaska. We knew that a trip of this kind would be expensive so we really never looked into how much a trip like this would cost. We knew we didn't have the money to go but we hoped that as we got closer to the date, maybe we'd find it. When we go to the year before that date, Vinnie had cancer. Medical bills and family affairs gobbled up what money I'd like to think we might have had. Who knows. When we knew Vinnie was in his last few weeks of life, it dawned on me one day that he might see Alaska before me - because he'd see it, if it's possible, from Heaven. I jokingly told him that I was mad at him that he could arrange to see it before me. He suggested that I go to Alaska myself with a small bottle of his ashes so I could say he took me along and then sprinkle some of the ashes in the ocean. My daughter, Shelly suggested to her dad to send me a picture! She's so cool.

I am amazed at the many ways that God speaks to us. The day Vinnie died, we had all the funeral arrangements on stand by. The funeral home and our pastor knew exactly what we wanted. All I had to do when he died was make a few calls, decide on days and times, and that was it. When we left Vinnie at the hospital, we knew the nurses were going to get him washed and ready for the funeral home. We went home to find his tuxedo that he wore to the last wedding he was at. We wanted him to go out in style! He looked so amazingly handsome when we saw him at the funeral home. He was finally at peace, with no pain, no more pain.

When I got home that evening, all I wanted to do was rest. I wanted nothing more than to rest in a quiet space, with no one calling me see how Vinnie was doing - just rest. The nurses warned me to get rest because it was going to be an exhausting weekend and the day after Vinnie died, I had one whole day of quiet. I recall laying on the sofa for a while and could see through the slats in the blinds. All of a sudden my daughter Michelle got excited because there was a hummingbird at the hummingbird feeder on the back deck!

Anyone who's known me for any length of time knows how much I love hummingbirds. My oldest daughter and her husband bought me a hummingbird feeder on their honeymoon. It had been on the back deck for weeks and never had a hummingbird at it once - not once. But that day, the day after Vinnie died, a beautiful little hummingbird came, flew around the feeder, feasted, perched it's little body on the side and hung around for the longest time - maybe five minutes. As soon as it flew away, I cried. I could not help be sense that the little bird was sent to us to be a comfort. When I told my daughter that I thought the bird was sent from Vinnie, or God to comfort us, she agreed; she sensed the same thing. A hummingbird never appeared at our feeder before and never came to the feeder since.

The funny thing is that as I was getting ready to go to the funeral home for the viewing, I could not find a pair of matching earrings. I do remember finding one hummingbird earring that I'd forgotten I had. And would you know - that I suddenly found the other hummingbird earring. It was the one that I could find a match to that night. Maybe it seems that I am stretching the idea that God would use hummingbirds to comfort one grieving widow, but it was a comfort to me just the same.

And I know now that it was God's intention to comfort me in whatever ways it would take. A few days after Vinnie died, my youngest daughter and her husband and I went to pick up my two of my grandchildren to spend the day with them. As soon as my grandson got in the car, he picked up something from the floor, I am guessing. My daughter took it away realizing that what he found was too nice to be played with. She asked me about it but I didn't know what she was talking about. To the best of my knowledge, there was nothing in my car. I'd been driving Vinnie around in my car for months (he was always too uncomfortable to drive) and he didn't like stuff laying around in the car. It had actually been clean for a while! (It no longer is now that he's not been here to stay on my back about it - sorry, Vinnie : ) !)

She began to tell me that it was a calendar with pictures of Alaska, but upon further examination, it turned out to be a calendar FROM Alaska! We were baffled! When I finally had a few minutes to look at it, I cried like a baby because the pictures were beautiful. I was sad that I would never go with Vinnie. I was baffled that the calendar really did come from Alaska, and that it came on a very sad day in our family - my oldest daughter was having major marital problems right after Vinnie's memorial service and we were relieving her of two of her children so she could take care of some affairs. We were all upset and this calendar showed up out of nowhere!

Over time, as I told this story to friends over the next few weeks, it became clear where the calendar came from. Apparently, several months before Vinnie stopped working, a lady at his office went to Alaska and brought back extra calendars with beautiful pictures in it. She asked her fellow workers if anyone wanted one to take home. Vinnie took one of course! He never told me about it. I never saw it before. I guess he either forgot or - well, who knows why I'd never been shown the calendar. I guess the answer to that is God. God saved it, hid it actually, in my car for months, I'd assume, until the very day and time I needed to see it. God comforted me and my daughter with this calendar. I am convinced He knew all along when it would need to be found. And when I thought there was nothing in my car to clutter the floor or seats, my grandson found it in a split second on the day it needed to be found.

Vinnie was right in his favorite saying - "God is good all the time, and all the time God is good." He was not one to have long verses memorized from the Bible but he knew God's Truth and His promises and reminded me of them daily - even after he left us to go Home! God (and maybe Vinnie too?) has remarkable ways of speaking to us. Remember the story in my first post about how God prepared my heart to hear the news of Vinnie's cancer? This too is a way God spoke to me. It's so important that we don't get so caught up in our own emotions, affairs, and problems and listen and watch for God. (I am preaching to this choir!) so we can "hear" from God who does speak to us in a multitude of ways - maybe even daily if we have our spiritual antennas' tuned up!

Moving Ahead - Tiny Blind Steps at a Time

2008-10-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of Vinnie with a large family gathering in 1994.

Life after death - I don't care how much thought goes into it or how much time there to think on it either, there is no way one can be prepared for the experience of losing the life of a person who'd been part of life for over 25 years! All the things that were planned before Vinnie died, all seemed illogical after he was gone. Our family started unraveling at the seams when he died too. It's like watching the back of a long button down wedding dress get pulled from ends and watching buttons fly off one at at time. Our lives were falling apart.

There are more details to the disasters going on all around me that just can't be shared because they are very private and I need to protect each one's privacy, but let me just say, the next two weeks I wasn't sure I was going to live. My heart was not beating regularly. In fact, some nights, my heart was beating so hard and irregular, it woke me up and kept me awake for the rest of the night! I had never, ever in whole life felt so horrible, both physically, mentally, or emotionally. It was a nightmare. There was no time to grieve except at night when the doors to the world were finally closed and there was time to cry. I cried a river those two weeks.

I wanted to get away so badly. Vinnie and I never made it to the beach in the summer like we did every year. I wanted to go to the beach, just one weekend, before I had to return to work. Two weeks after Vinnie died, I was hardly getting any sleep, but I was being pressured to come back to work! Ugh. I surely didn't want to. I wanted to be left alone for about a month! I was drained and exhausted and stretched to the absolute maximum but I compromised. I agreed to come back to work right away if it could have to part time, I felt I better get my weekend at the beach in while I could. It was a nice weekend away. (This was a moon rising photo taken that weekend!) Then I went to work on Monday! The first morning there, when the first phone call came in, I cried. I wanted that call to be Vinnie. He used to call me almost every morning and said, "I'm just calling to say hello to my beautiful, gorgeous, sexy wife!" (If you saw the size of me you'd know how sweet it was of him to say that everyday!) He really meant it too. He really saw me that way to him. No one has ever loved me as much as Vinnie. Maybe no one else ever will, but I am blessed to have been married such a long time to one who did. I am very blessed.

I got an email around the second week after Vinnie was gone telling me about a new GriefShare group starting up at a church down town. I couldn't go that week but I decided to go the following week. The session started out with a video. Oh my...I thought I'd never get through the session. I may have gone through a half a box of tissues! I felt like no one else was crying in the room. Was this not for grieving people? Well, some people there have been grieving for a long time. I had just lost Vinnie two or three weeks before that. I was still in pieces. I still am in pieces.

But I liked the discussion group. The stories from some of these women my sorry little life at least shine with a silver lining on it somewhere. I had no idea that it's normal for families to fall apart when a central person in that family dies! It doesn't take much for all the witches and goblins to come out of the woodwork when there's an opportunity - and they can come right out from people you never knew could be like that before. They prey on people who are too weak at the time of ultimate grief and attempt to gobble them up. It's sickening - but it's the result of living in a dark world. It's just life on earth as it is now. (We're ready for your return any time now, Jesus!)

GriefShare has helped me understand the grieving process, what's normal even though we all grieve differently. It is one of the best things I've done since Vinnie died. It's helped me remember him well and though sad, I am okay with it. I don't want to forget Vinnie. I love him very much. He was a good man, a good husband, and I will probably never have another. GriefShare helps me see I am not abnormal. It's nice to be given permission to go on, to find joy, to be okay with sadness, in fact, to accept that I'll have it - even for a very long time. I am not getting used to my grief, I am getting more comfortable with it. There is a difference.

I am beginning to move on. It's strange and it even feels disloyal sometimes, but then I remember that Vinnie's new life is not disloyal to me. God has us living on other ends of His world right now. Vinnie is living a new life and I must live one too. I wish so much that Vinnie could live this one with me - that hurts like crazy sometimes. I think he'd be so very proud of me for some of the things I've done since he's been gone. But he's not here and he's not going to be. He is experiencing more joy than I'll ever know here. I am here. I must give myself permission to know as much joy as this world can allow us while here on earth, and keep praying that God will reveal what He wants from my life while I am here. I am taking tiny steps that were once in the dark but they are beginning, two months later, to be steps taken with some glimmer of light ahead. It's surreal but it is happening - the journey is continuing.

Lord, I changed my mind!

2008-10-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

(The pictures on this post are of friends saying good-bye to Vinnie)

Vinnie grew weaker and weaker over the next few weeks and his pain medicine was increased each week, sometimes twice a week. He continued to "travel" daily. In fact, it seemed he was more 'there' than here everyday. He was eating less and less and towards the end, it was even harder to drink. Sometimes he complained that his chest hurt and he could feel the cancer choking his breath.

He also began to do strange things. He was eating imaginary bread from imaginary plates, drinking hot beverages from imaginary cups, and seeing all kinds of beautiful things such as flowered bushes, beautiful children and 'kind people'. He even saw golden retrievers. We didn't know what to make of all this coming from such a logical and level headed kind of guy!

That Friday, Vinnie was weirder than ever. He seemed very restless that day and very uncomfortable that night when we went to bed. He kept getting up. He'd try to rest on the floor, in his favorite chair, in the chair with the massage cushion, but nothing worked. It kept me awake. He was not making much sense at this point, even his speech was not clear. It was getting harder and harder to understand what he was saying. I wondered if cancer was in his throat. So I got up to see if I could help him. He got upset that I was spying on him. He tried to leave but walked out on the porch and stood out there in his bathrobe swaying back and forth. He finally came back inside and started staggering around the room, knocking things over and falling. He got hurt a few times. I thought he might break something or hurt me. I called the nurse on call.

She told me he was experiencing terminal agitation. She said not everyone experiences this but it is not uncommon. She reminded me that Vinnie was not going to live much longer now and that nothing I could do at this point was going to hurt Vinnie. She then gave me a whole list of things to do to try to calm Vinnie down. I started giving him morphine every 15 minutes along with other meds that are supposed to calm a person down. I had to give it all to him in a syringe because he could not swallow very well. I called her another hour or so later and told her that it wasn't helping...it was making him worse! She gave me another regimen of things to do and said that if I called her again, she would not hesitate to just come here. I told her I'd try the next set of things to do. I didn't want her to come. It was already 1 a.m. at this point, and she lived almost an hour away! However, when Vinnie started spitting the medication at me, I called and said, "Come! Just come!" She arrived about an hour later.

When she arrived, she asked me to call 911. We were going to take Vinnie to the hospital. He was out of control and I was unable to help him. I knew that was going to make him pretty upset. He didn't want to go back to the hospital. Sure enough...he was really upset! He tried to get out of bed dozens of times every day he was there. This once gentle man was biting, kicking, and punching all of us, especially me! He was very mad at me for this.

Because of his aggressive and unpredictable behavior, the doctor ordered a nurse to stay in the room with him around the clock. The nurses insisted I go home each night and get sleep because I probably hadn't gotten much of it lately and would need it at the end. So I arrived each morning to see Vinnie and stayed all day in the room with him. I loved being there all day. I didn't want to be anywhere else. I could see the blessing too in getting used to being home alone, especially when it was time to go to sleep. God was giving me the chance to get used to being there without Vinnie. Isn't God so good?! It was painful but also a blessing because I wasn't grieving Vinnie yet.

Each day at the hospital, I'd talk all day to the CNA's that stayed with Vinnie around the clock and of course, got to know all the RN's on the oncology floor. As I told stories of our life together, our family, and about all the ways God revealed his goodness even along the sad and crazy journey of Vinnie's cancer, they all began to really love Vinnie. Some remembered him from other hospital stays and already loved him.

By Wednesday morning, I realized that even though we wanted Vinnie to die at home, God had a different and very intentional plan. He wanted us to be where others would be blessed by the stories of His as His work in our lives over the years. I could hardly wait to tell Vinnie what God showed me. I hoped he would comprehend what I had to tell him. I think he did. He squeezed my hand when I reminded him that we always said we wanted God's will over our own. That meant even about how and where we would die. He was calmer after that.

Each of the children had made a promise to Vinnie before he died. Each one's promise was different and pertinent to their own personalities and needs. One promised to be a peace maker in the family. Another promised to finished school and get her self in a situation where she didn't have to rely on other people for basic survival anymore. I recently learned that even my sister and her husband made a promise to Vinnie before he died. They promised to look after me for him. I am not sure what the other two kids promised him but I was well aware that I hadn't promised him anything. I didn't know what I could promise him that would be significant to him, at least not until that morning! As I told him my revelation about why God wanted him in the hospital, that it was for the purpose of blessing others, it became apparent what my promise is suppose to be. I promised him that his death would not be in vain, that the story of our lives and God's work in us and in his death, would live on and bless others for years to come. I promised him I'd make sure of it. That is the purpose of this blog.

Ironically, that morning I also had another piece of information to tell Vinnie. I got word that Vinnie's mother was coming to see him from Italy. She had seen him at the recent wedding, and he didn't want her to see him when he got really sick. He didn't want her hovering over him carrying on and crying. He wanted her to stay home. I had to tell him that she was going to be here on Friday and that if he really didn't want her to see him like this, he'd have to die, really soon. I leaned over and told him that it was a perfect day to die. I think I told him that every day in his last week. But that morning when I told him, it was as though someone else were in the room reminding him of what day it would be. He ignored me and gave a subtle nod in agreement to the invisible one speaking to him. I am now convinced that he knew it would be Friday. Friday was going to be a perfect day for him to die. In many ways, it was.

That Wednesday I had a good day with Vinnie. I had a good conversation with the nurse on duty. I had a chance to talk to Vinnie without sensing he was mad at me, and Vinnie seemed to be very calm and peaceful that day. I decided to stay the night in the room with him and stayed the next day, Thursday, until about 3 p.m. At that point, I felt the need to go home, pay some bills, clean, and do some laundry. I called the hospital again around 9 p.m. Vinnie was still doing great. He was peaceful and resting. I decided to stay home and go to bed early. The hospice nurse did not tell me that the caregiver (that's me) often times gets a sense of 'housekeeping' like Vinnie had the week before, when the time is near. Thursday had become my 'housekeeping' day; Vinnie died the next day.

I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. I called the hospital and Vinnie was fine. But I felt very sad that day. It was Friday, August 29. I couldn't explain it but suddenly knowing Vinnie was going to die seemed very final and very sad. I cried out to God and told him I was a fake. I told him I only thought I was strong but I wasn't. I told him that I only thought I was going to be okay with Him taking my Vinnie away but I was not! I told God that I had changed my mind! I didn't want him to take Vinnie at all. I told him I wanted to take pictures with Vinnie from the cruise in Alaska we were suppose to go on. I told God I was suppose to come home every few months and show pictures of Vinnie and me to our kids, grand kids and even great grand kids of us standing outside our RV as we traveled around the country site seeing. I didn't want Vinnie to go now. I wasn't ready. I knew God was going to take him though. I suddenly looked in my bedroom and thought, "If you are going to leave me here without him, this bedroom has to become mine, not 'ours' and proceeded to rip all the bedding off and threw it in the guest room! Before I went to the hospital, I bought new bedding with a gift card a friend had given me and put it in the trunk of my car.

When I got to the hospital parking deck, I got a call from the charge nurse asking when I was going to be there. I asked if Vinnie was okay and she said she'd talk to me when I got upstairs. When I got off the elevator, she wrapped her arms around me and told me with tears in her eyes, that Mr. Vinnie was going to die soon. I went in the room and realized it would probably only be an hour or so. I called Shelly first because she lives the farthest way - about an hour an a half. She left right away and got there in record time for there being so much morning traffic. I called Amy next. I knew she would have to find someone to watch the kids. Ironically, her husband had just arrived home after being sent home for lack of work that day. He watched the kids and Amy got to the hospital in 15 minutes (don't tell but it takes a usual 30 minutes!) Christine was scheduled to close on the house that day. We were all proud of her and her husband and I told her to keep the closing date knowing that her dad was so proud and would not want her to cancel. She came around 1 p.m. Michael was working out of state that day but he still made it back in 4 hours! Vinnie died at 11:30 just about the time that the last papers were signed at the closing. Christine was excited that she got to close on her house before her daddy died, just as she had hoped. God's timing in all of it was perfect.

I wanted to be with Vinnie in his final hour and I wouldn't have traded that time with him for anything, but it was very hard (though also surreal). He was having the hardest time breathing. His poor stomach was sunken in from lack of food and basic deterioration. He looked so small and frail. I must have stroked his hair a million and a half times. I told him that he was the love of my life. I told him that I will never be the same because of his life with me. I told him I'd changed my mind about him going and that I wasn't okay with him leaving us. I told him I wish it could have been me that had been sick instead of him so he could stay with his kids and grand kids. I told him I loved him and would never be the same without him. I never will be. In his last few minutes, he was gasping for air. He would take a breath, and it would be another long and agonizing 30 or 45 seconds and he'd take another one. When it was clear that he'd taken his last breath, I noticed that his heart was still beating. It nearly killed me to watch it beating away and he wasn't breathing. It was awful. I put my hand over his heart until it didn't beat anymore. We each suddenly fell apart. There were no nurses in the room in his final hour. A nurse did open the door at the end and I whispered that Mr. Vinnie had gone Home. She left the room. They gave us our time with him. His fight was over. It was over. He was with the Lord. I couldn't believe it was so final. I just couldn't believe it. I had changed my mind but God had not changed His. Vinnie was gone from this life with us. Gone. We were suppose to say, "I'll see you later" but it sure felt like "Good-bye" to me!

The Party's Over - or was he ready for another one?

2008-10-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Our move to the apartment was interesting to say the least. Hospice sent a hospital bed over to our apartment right away. It adjusted at the head and feet which was great for Vinnie since it was so hard for him to get comfortable. He 'slept' most of the time but it was a restless sleep; he usually tossed, turned, and got up often. He was given an air mattress which moved under him as he did. It made a lot of noise at night. So did Vinnie. These are not good for someone (like me) who learned after 24 years of being a mother, to be a light sleeper. (Photos are more of Vinnie with friends and family at his celebration party)

Vinnie was not only making a lot of noise at night by tossing and turning and getting up to sit in a chair which I had put a massaging pad on, or to sleep on the floor which he did often, he was also talking and "traveling" as the hospice nurse described it. Before our move to the apartment, Vinnie had a vision on night that baffled him (and me). He was reaching for something in his sleep and moaning like he was trying to talk. I was trying to get him up to go to work. He was acting weird. When he was finally up, I asked him about the dream. He said there were angels 'there' and they wouldn't talk to him. He later said, "I just can't figure out what they were doing and why they wouldn't answer me when I talked to them!" He also asked me if I saw them. They were so real to him that he couldn't believe I hadn't seen them too. I hadn't.

The hospice nurse described this as a normal event for someone who is 'traveling'. Traveling for the terminal patient is going in and out of this realm on earth and the one to follow. As a Christian, we knew his visions and 'travels' were of Heaven. As time progressed, he had more and more dreams. One morning while his sister was visiting from New York and having a difficult time accepting that she would have to say "good-bye" to her brother, he asked her if she remembered what he did when their dad passed away 25 years ago. Apparently, while their dad was in a coma for almost a month, and their mother cried every day, Vinnie decided to do something to make her laugh. He propped their dad up in bed, put his glasses on his face and a newspaper in his hand. He yelled for his mother to come because his dad was asking for her. They all hit him of course, but it made them all laugh. (Remember from a previous plot that I mentioned that Vinnie was a real joker?)

He asked her this because he had encountered a visit that night from his dad. He saw his dad and he was reading a newspaper and turning the page! This made them both cry together. She was then able to understand that it was okay for him to leave. She told Vinnie it was okay to 'go home' and be with Daddy. The really COOL thing is that I was in the room when he told her this. He got up a few minutes later and went back to bed. His sister came over to tell me what Vinnie had said. I told her that I heard what he said. She asked, "You understand Italian?" I said, no he was speaking English. She heard the story in Italian and I heard it in English! It makes sense that he would have said it in Italian. Her Italian is better than her English. The story took place in Italy, with his Italian family, and he was telling the story to her. He wasn't talking to me but God wanted me to hear the story and allowed me to hear it in English. For all those who think that God doesn't do things the same way He did in Biblical days, think again!

After we moved, many of Vinnie's visions were of parties, feasts, lot of company and people. There were cute children, golden retrievers, and 'nice people' everywhere. He ate, drank, and got ready for big parties with lots of food (we all love a good meal out!). It didn't seem that Vinnie was reliving his Celebration Party. It seemed that Vinnie was preparing for another one. One we would not be eating at with him. Everyday it seemed he was more "there' and less and less here and we wondered each day if it was his last. We just didn't know what to expect.

He was getting stronger and stronger doses of pain medicine prescribed each week. His pain was almost unbearable. But one day, out of the blue, he got up and was full of energy. He ate all day long - real meals and snacks and drinks. We hadn't seen him like that in months! He took care of the bills, put the computer together, moved some furniture and had an accountant come over to hand over one of his accounts! To top it off, he hadn't taken pain medicine all day!!!! He thought that maybe there had been a miracle and he was healed. He was determined to call the doctor in the morning and demand another scan. He really thought his cancer had been taken away. We weren't sure what to think. I had read that a person who is close to death will often times have a day near the end when they are full of energy. It is a symptom that is sometimes called, 'housekeeping'. It's sort of like the maternal instinct that a pregnant woman experiences a day or two before she gives birth. The hospice nurse continually referred to the death process like that of childhood backwards (although I thought that for a Christian it might more accurately be described as one preparing to be born again into the next realm of life - after all, they leave a place of darkness and go where there is light) This was a clear indication that Vinnie was sure to be going Home soon. The night of his "hopeful healing' he was in agony and couldn't get enough pain medicine. He died 10 days later.

The hospice nurse explained this phenomenon as spiritual energy. The body is preparing to separate and experiences a surge of energy often expressed by the sudden urge and ability to 'tie up lose ends". Hospice staff see so much of this experience every day that they have drawn some pretty fair conclusions according to the similar experiences and description of the experiences they hear and see from their patience, even though each person's experience is unique. It was hard to not imagine that Vinnie was getting ready for another party - one that we weren't going to be at with him. That was a very sad thought for me; but a happy one for him. (This picture is of the standing ovation Vinnie got at the end of his celebration party! It was awesome!)

Celebration of Life-"We'll See You Later"

2008-10-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

(All the pictures here are from the Celebration of Life party- Vinnie with friends and family)

As I wander around by myself in the kitchen, wondering what in the world I should eat for dinner, I once again break into with tears wishing my Vinnie was still here. I know he's happy. I know he's at peace and he has no more pain. I know that also means I don't have to run down to the bedroom anymore because he needs me, I know it means I don't have to run to the drug store for laxatives, or cough drops in the middle of the night. But I still miss my sweet Vinnie.

I look in the refrigerator for the sixth or seventh time and finally decide on scrambled eggs which I will prepare with left over pieces of shrimp and a few slices of delicious Vermont cheddar cheese. I know this might sound weird but it was actually pretty good. It was quick, easy, and good too. I ate it with oat toast and raspberry jam. It was good. I sure do eat strange things these days.

When Vinnie and I went to our last visit to the oncologist office, we were pretty sure we were done trying to get treatment for Vinnie. We were tired of all the running around back and forth, all the disappointments, the pain, the whole thing. After all, didn't the doctor say he was going to die anyway? This is not what we wanted his death to be like. He wanted to die at home. All the running around was wearing us out! But when the doctor finally came in with the results of the blood test they took, his kryon count was hire than ever before! (see previous blog about kryon function of the kidney) This was the straw that broke the camel's back. We knew right then that we were at the end. We had a long talk with the doctor and he had us talk to the woman in charge of the hospice group at Duke right away. After talking to her we were sure we were doing the right thing. The doctor guessed that Vinnie would have two months to live. The doctor was pretty darn close! We received hospice care right away. Once people start hospice care, they are no longer focused on making the patient live longer; they are focused on making him or her be as comfortable in the process of dieing. Vinnie was really going to die - soon. I was sort of prepared but it also seemed surreal. This couldn't really be happening, could it?

Back in March, shortly after Vinnie got off the wound vac, I was in church one morning by myself (Vinnie wasn't feel well that morning) and I felt like God told me that Vinnie was going to die before my 52nd birthday. I believed he would die in August. So even though I felt hopeful all along, I also knew that these could be his last days. Also in March, I attended the memorial service of a sweet friend's mother. Various family and friends stood up and shared a memorable moment about her. I thought to myself then, that if the doctors did tell us that Vinnie would die, I'd want to throw Vinnie a party to celebrate his life and for him to know how much people loved him.

Once we stopped running around to doctor office visits and hospitals for more tests of some kind, we saw how quickly he was deteriorating. I felt like we needed to have that party soon! So a couple we are very close to offered to put the party together for me. We decided on pot luck after church. We had the party the Sunday in August and I am so glad we decided to have it at the church. There were at least 300 people there! It took a long time for everyone to get through the food line!

We started the 'ceremony' with one of Vinnie's favorite worship songs, "Here I am To Worship". Then people were given a chance to get up to the microphone to share how much they love Vinnie and/or how he's impacted their lives. Many people could not get up and share. They were too heart broken. There was not a dry eye in the place. Vinnie was a grand man in the lives of many! I was so proud to be his wife. We ended the sharing time when our worship leader sang, "I Can Only Imagine". I wasn't sure he'd get through the song; it brought him to tears. It brought us all to tears. Our Vinnie was leaving us and going to Heaven. We'd have to imagine it but soon, he would not be imagining it anymore.

It took over a half an hour for people to say good-bye to Vinnie that day. I think many of them knew they might not see him again. Many of them didn't. He lived three and a half weeks longer and spent most of that time in bed. It was sad to see my Vinnie so sick, so unable to get around, having such a hard time walking, talking, and breathing. Cancer is a terrible disease. It's awful. But Vinnie got to leave this stage of his life, earth, knowing that his life made a difference to others. It's all we ever hoped for. He could leave fulfilled. He could leave with peace. We got to tell him how much we love him. Cancer is terrible but it does give us time we need to say good-bye and let go of the one we love with peace and no regret. That part of cancer is a blessing. It's also a blessing because it gives everyone who is dieing because of it the chance to get their souls right with God. Vinnie's soul was right with God. We knew he was going to be Jesus in Heaven very soon. I can't imagine how hard this journey would have been if we were absolutely sure of that! Our time apart will only a season, not forever.

The next two and a half weeks were busy - VERY busy! Our daughter Amy and her family were living in our house. Vinnie and I decided to take an apartment where it was quieter and less labor intensive. Amy & Mike were going to rent our house. It seemed a very good idea at the time and the hospice staff was very positive about it so we did it. We had dozens of people from our church help us move, pack, unpack, clean, and fix us meals. It was awesome.

As soon as we got in the apartment, visitors started coming. They came every day - people at the office, the church, and even from out of state! They came from New York. We got calls from people in Atlanta, Charlotte, and even Thailand! It was non-stop. Everyone wanted one last time with Vinnie. Unfortunately, Vinnie didn't have much energy left. But it was closure for everyone who came. It was sad, but it added peace for them. Every day he got closer and closer to death. I still wondered what it was going to be like when he actually died, but this time I knew his time was near. I would sometimes watch him for hours in the night wondering if I'd wake up in the morning and he'd be gone. He kept holding on. We kept kept holding on. Eventually the wait became agony for all of us - his family anyway. But we tried to enjoy what ever bit of company we could keep with him. We didn't want him to leave, but we didn't want him to suffer anymore. We were ready to let him go.

At the Celebration of Life party we threw for Vinnie, people also had the opportunity to write their thoughts on cards so we could keep them for ever to read. Amy wrote a letter to her dad. Towards the end of the letter she said, "I'll never say good-bye to you, Daddy, never good-bye. I will only say, "I'll see you later." It became our motto..."we'll see you later."

Love is Patient, love is...

2008-10-13T04:22:00.000-07:00

Scripture is so convicting! You've all heard that passage at just about every wedding you've ever attended, right?

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud." 1 Corinthians 13:4

(The picture below is of Vinnie with his four grown kids. Left to front: Amy, Michael, Christine & Michelle (Shelly)

After Shelly's wedding, Vinnie and I took a little vacation in the mountains of Tennesee. We never made it to Alaska liked we talked about for years before. It was our dream to go to Alsaka for our 25th anniversary. We never got there. I joked about seeing mountains and water in Alaska and that we'd get to see the same in TN! But Vinnie was in so much pain and so exhausted from the wedding. He slept most of the time we were away. He had little energy to take walks or even take a drive through a drive-through natural park! I did all the driving there and back. It was a lonely "vacation" for me, really. And he was always struggling with pain. It didn't make much sense to me that he was suppose to be cancer free but he seemed to be more uncomfortable than ever! He was taking strong pain medicine but it never seemed to help. The pain medicine also caused him constipation which caused more pain. He asked me about every hour (I am not exaggerating!), "What should I do now, take more pain medicine or a stool softener, or a laxative?" It required SO MUCH PATIENCE! Wow...I really needed that passage - daily! Love, love, love, is what? Oh yeah...patient and kind. Talk about a need for God to take over! He has the love, He has the patience. I needed it for mine was wearing thin even though I did love him (and still do!). Such is the struggle of selfish people who wrestle with the Holy Spirit who can help us be like God & live with His heart. I have a good friend who lives by the words, "...all for our good and His glory." I cherished those words and leaned on them to help me remember that God had a purpose even in all this!

His pain worsened every week we were back home, and he seemed to sleep all the time. He would try to get up some mornings to go to work, but would often times call me an hour or two later with barely enough energy to speak. He'd tell me he could not make it through the day and was going home. One day after being home all morning sleeping (pain kept him up many nights) he attempted to go to work in the afternoon but ended up coming home around 4 p.m. He drove himself home. It was pouring rain. I suddenly heard a car horn that would not stop blowing. I looked outside and found Vinnie doubled over the steering wheel of his truck.

I ran out to see what he was doing. He told me to call 911. He felt like his stomach was about to explode where the stoma was. He was scared. He had had to pull off the road on the way home too, because he thought he was going to pass out. We went to the ER via ambulance and spent a good portion of the night there but no one could figure out what had happened. I think it was another week or two before we discovered that the cancer was back, but watching him was getting more and more scary and each day was becoming more and more unreliable.

It was a Sunday morning; Vinnie was in bad shape, barely able to walk. We went to church and left immediately after. He was going to meet his son and son-in-law at the home of a friend to show them what needed to be done to finish a ceramic tile job he'd been doing for her. With Vinnie out of work so much, we were not getting his full pay and the side job was vital for us to pay all these doctor visits and prescriptions. He was supervising this job. That afternoon, while trying to show the guys what to do, he laid on the floor curled up in a ball with pain. Once again I took him to the ER.

This time when the doctor in the ER saw how much pain Vinnie was in, he knew Vinnie's was going to have to be admitted so they could figure out how to manage his pain. He had been given several shots of morphine and it was the first time in a long time I'd seen Vinnie seem himself again - no pain! The doctor wanted to know what was causing all the pain so he was sent up to get another CT Scan. He was admitted and I went home to get a little sleep and bring back some clothes for him in the morning. We figured he'd be home in the morning. But I no sooner got home and Vinnie called me. His doctor came in around 11:30 p.m. to tell him what was going on. The cancer was back. It was in the liver, lungs, and traveling to the other kidney, as well as all over the lymph nodes in the back. I went right back to the hospital. We talked and cried for hours. The nurses let me stay in the extra bed in his room that night.

His oncologist came in in the morning to talk to us both. We were told that the cancer was aggressive and that he would get Vinnie set up for chemo but there was no question, Vinnie was going to die. The doctor knew that he would not be able to save Vinnie. It took another 5 days before the doctors were able to get the right combination of pain meds to control the pain. Shortly after he went home, we started going to the doctor to prepare for chemo but each time, there was a hitch...the kryon count in the kidney was too high to do chemo successfully. If I understand it, the kryon is a measure used to determine how well the kidney is draining.

After a few weeks of waiting for the kryon count to drop, the doctor decided should have yet another operation. This time he wanted to open the uterer with a stint to get the kidney draining better but the doctor performing the surgery realized half way through the procedure, that there was no blockage! So he woke up from surgery and was sent home! Talk about patience. We were both being asked to have so much of it! We were both becoming worn out and ready to stop. A week a later, we finally made that choice.

(The picture on the left is of Vinnie with his sister, brother, and sister-in-law.)

Weddings and A Memorial Service

2008-10-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

By March Vinnie was off the wound vac and returned to work. He was referred to an oncologist sometime in March or early April. The oncologist investigated his health record and was alarmed. Vinnie options for treatment was going to be a challenge; he was limited in the types of chemo he could have. The fact that he had hepatitis could cause a problem if one type of chemo was used. The fact that he had only one kidney presented a problem if the other type chemo was used. The latest CT Scan showed no signs of cancer so Vinnie and I opted to do nothing. We didn't see any reason to make other parts of his body sick when there wasn't even something to be targeting - there was at that point, no sign of cancer.

Early in the year we also pulled together plans for my oldest daughter's wedding. (See Amy and her dad on the right.) We were busy putting flower arrangements together and sewing wildly. But in spite of Vinnie's good report from the doctor, he was still very tired and in a lot of pain. We just thought he was still recovering from the extensive surgery he'd had in January. After all, getting all those organs out is no small thing! He barely lasted through the wedding, and since we did the entire reception ourselves, all the decorations, and food had to be packed up and taken home. He was so exhausted! (Well, we all were!) But it was a lovely wedding.

We soon got the news that she was pregnant - with twins! It was pretty exciting to think of having twin grandchildren! But Amy's pregnancy was not an easy one. She had constant cramping and was often times in paralyzing pain. In spite of several visits to the doctor and even emergency rooms, no one could tell her what the pain was being caused from. By the time it became apparent why she was having the pain, it was too late. She had been taking Tylenol for the pain. Tylenol also brings down fevers. One morning she realized that she had a low grade fever so decided not to take Tylenol until she could see if the fever would rise without it. It did. She was off to the ER again. This time, because of the high temperature and a high white blood count, she was admitted. It was also discovered that she was in labor. At 17 weeks she would lose the babies if they were born so she was quickly given high doses of antibiotics. In spite of the antibiotics, her water broke and the babies were born around 1:30 in the morning. They were alive when they were born, wiggling in her hands, but they died while she was holding them. They never had a chance. I don't know if I was sadder for my daughter's loss or mine. It was one of the saddest days of my whole life, at least up that point.

Amy was allowed to keep the babies with her in the hospital. The staff was very sensitive to her need to have closure. We gave Logan and Lauren a memorial service that Thursday. The next day was rehearsal dinner for my youngest daughter's wedding! Oh my...what a month! Vinnie had another CT scan that week too - it came back "clean". There were no signs of cancer. We could move on to happier events. Looking back on it, I can see that God did not allow us to see the cancer that I believe was still in there lurking and growing in Vinnie somewhere. God wanted us to marry our daughter without thinking he would not live much longer. Now that is grace!

Shelly's rehearsal was actually the weekend before the weekend of her wedding. (I highly recommend this! It gives a lot more time to rest before the wedding and takes a lot of stress off of the two affairs when they are back to back!) Shelly was getting married on our 25th wedding anniversary. She would carry on the tradition of celebrating her marriage on our date. Because it was our 25th, we incorporated the event into Shelly's ceremony by renewing our vows first! We each wrote our own vows to each other and kept it a secret. Only Shelly and our pastor knew what we each had written! We each said something in our vows about keeping our vows for as long as the Lord would allow us to remain together. I couldn't help but wonder if Vinnie felt like I did, that our time wasn't going to be much longer but I didn't ask him. I never asked him. In spite of the recent good diagnosis, I just sensed he knew too. I was more right than I could have imagined I'd be.

A Twist of Events

2008-10-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Waiting for Vinnie's surgery was awful. The holidays were a struggle. (See Vinnie on the right on Christmas opening presents with his grandchildren.) Vinnie was so uncomfortable. He wasn't his usual funny self, his patience was a tad bit shorter, and he was tired. But eventually, January 31 came. We drove to Duke and signed Vinnie in for surgery. The waiting room was only supposed to have 2 visitors in it. It was crowded and there were four of us in there-my two daughter, one of my future son-in-laws, and me. We hoped the nurses would not ask some of us to leave. I had a bad feeling about this day but I didn't want the kids to know. I appeared hopeful, expectant, and very positive.

About an hour into the expected 6 hour surgery, we each began to confess that we each had a "bad feeling" about the surgery. We could not say why, or what we thought was going to happen, but we sensed it was not going to be as smooth as we were told it could go. Ten minutes after that, we were asked to go into a consultation room to get an update on how the surgery was going. It was not a good report.

The cancer had grown quite aggressively. It had destroyed too much of the uterer to save what was still a perfectly good kidney but without a uterer, it would have to way of draining. It had to be removed. So Vinnie would not get a reconstructive bladder; he had his left kidney removed, his bladder, prostate, and lymph nodes. The surgery took 10 hours.

Requests for prayer went out to most of our church family and the church members where we each worked, days before he went in for surgery. But this twist in events got urgent prayer requests sent out immediately. So many pastors and church leaders came to see us that afternoon! The funny thing is that not one hospital staff person said anything about the number of visitors we had there that day. They knew our beloved Vinnie was not doing well, that we were in shock, and that we were well loved by many. They even gave us access to the phone in the waiting room in pre-op until the call came that he was sent to ICU. We were finally able to see Vinnie nearly 12 hours later. He seemed barely alive, connected to tubes all over him. He didn't respond for days. It was scary. Once again I began to wonder if this what it would be like when Vinnie died, but it was not to happen now.

He was finally brought up to a room and we began the cumbersome task of learning to change the urostomy bag. There is an art to this task! It has to fit exactly right, the skin has to be completely dry (in an area that is not prone to be dry!), you have to learn to shave the skin without soap, lotion, or other products that can infect the stoma, and it's important to get a good seal unless you want to change sheets and wash laundry all day long. Right after surgery the stoma is at it's largest so it takes even longer to learn how to do it because the size and shape changes so much until it heals. Ugh! It was a frustrating task. One day I could not get it right. I went through all the remaining six bags and finally took Vinnie to the hospital to see the ostomy nurse to show me how to do it all over again. He went with a roll of paper towel on his belly! Oh my goodness. What a fiasco!

Even though we were told he'd be in the hospital for 10 days, Vinnie was sent home 6 days after the surgery. He hadn't been home two days and we noticed that fluid was dribbling down his belly from along the incision. When I took him to the ER, they realized that the stitches in the under layers of skin had come apart. He needed a third surgery! This time all the stitches had to be removed. He was sent home a few days later with a wound vac. A wound vac is a cumbersome battery operated vacuum that sucks fluid from a sponge system taped to the opening in the skin until the skin grows enough for the wound to close on its own. He could not go anywhere without taking the vac with him, and then either couldn't stay long or we'd have to find an electrical outlet to plug him into. He had to wear this thing for almost two months!

The spongy dressing had to be changed three times a week and each session took about an hour because it was such a large wound. I can still remember hearing the nurse saying, it's a pretty wound, Mr. Vinnie, a pretty wound. What? Pretty? It was interesting maybe, but pretty? Only a nurse could say that. Sometimes we'd get a different nurse. It was fascinating to see how differently each nurse repacked his wound. Sometimes the vac would get strange suction through the sponge, usually at night of course, and would make a lot of noise! That was so annoying and we'd get little sleep. It was like having someone trying to start up an old car right in the bedroom!

Winter is a hard month for me. I don't like cold weather. I don't like days of less sunlight either. And that winter was the longest of my whole life I think. I had to learn to change an ostomy bag, I had to take care of very sick man who was always in pain. And in the midst of all this, my daughters were beginning to think they should bump their wedding dates up! I had just started a new job just before Vinnie got sick so I was still working, taking care of Vinnie, and planning two weddings! We had to adjust to the fact that Vinnie would not get a reconstructed bladder and that life for Vinnie would never be the same again! I had no idea that January 31 would mark the beginning of so many twisted events - events that would not only change us forever but end Vinnie's just months later.

It Really Wasn't Funny!

2008-10-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Vinnie was a joker; he loved to make people laugh. If we were ever at someone's home, a party or some kind of social event, Vinnie always had a joke to tell - or several jokes! He had a closet full of riddles he'd pull out to keep kids busy (and grown up kids too). He loved to joke around. (This is Vinnie joking around with his mother.)

After Vinnie's surgery, he was kept overnight and wheeled up to the fifth floor. All the kids were there by the end of the day and we all waited in his room for him to come up. We waited almost an hour, if I remember correctly, for him to come out of anesthesia. I'd never seen Vinnie so quiet! He almost looked dead and I remember wondering if he'd look like that when he'd die but today wouldn't be the day. Today he'd wake up and be okay.

It seemed a long time before he began to show signs of coming around from after the surgery. He suddenly opened one eye. He rolled that eye around and took a picture in his mind of each one of us in the room. After assessing his company, he slowly opened the other eye and again, glanced a moment to take inventory of each person watching over him. I was there with all four of Vinnie's grown up kids. He said nothing for several minutes and then he opened his mouth. Out popped that crazy joke he read to me early in the morning from the magazine! I couldn't believe it! What did he do - go over that joke a hundred times in his mind all through surgery so he wouldn't forget it? Was he prepared to make this sober bunch of family members quickly get over their fears by telling that dumb joke? It made us all laugh. I still didn't think the joke was that funny but I thought Vinnie was. There was and never will be another guy like Vinnie.

The next morning the doctor came to see Vinnie with results of the pathologist report. He had cancer and the doctor hadn't removed it all. Vinnie would have to have surgery again, and his bladder would have to be removed. The doctor spent some time with us both explaining what that would entail and what Vinnie's options were for this procedure. We had no idea that people could have bladders rebuilt inside and no one would ever know that the bladder was gone. We had hope that the bladder would come out and that he would be able to eat, drink, sleep, swim, and do all the normal things he'd always done even without a bladder! We were relieved.

(To the right is a picture of Vinnie goofing around with one of his grandsons.)
Recovering from this "simple" procedure of removing the tumor was a taste of what was to come for us. Vinnie experienced more pain than he had before the surgery. At first this seemed normal because, after all, he was recovering from surgery. But over the next few weeks while we waited for an appointment to meet with the surgeons specialized at reconstructing bladders at Duke University, his pain seemed to grow and grow. By the time we finally got to the doctor's office to meet the next surgeon, he was in terrible pain. We were told that because he cancer was so invasive, he would have only a 50/50 chance to survive the cancer, with or without any of the choices he'd make as to the type of reconstruction he would decide on. That was scary news to me. This doctor was a straight shooter. She told it like it was, not like we would hope it would be. She wanted us to know the facts. We were stunned.

Not only were we stunned about his prognosis, but we were also disappointed to know that he would not even be able to get the surgery until January 31! We would have to wait almost two months for this surgery! The doctor suggested it would be best to have chemo first for six months and then do the surgery but Vinnie was in too much pain to wait six months. He opted to get the surgery and have chemo later. We had no idea that the cancer would grow so fast.

We waited two agonizing months for the surgery. He was in constant pain. He was always uncomfortable. He was not himself. My Vinnie was deteriorating before me. I just didn't know it. He was beginning to change, slowly change, into someone I never knew before. My Vinnie and our life together was changing and it was becoming less and less funny.

A Bumpy Ride

2008-10-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

That's my Vinnie on his little green scooter. He loved that little bike and that crazy red helmet! He was one of a kind, that man. He road the grandchildren around on it and drove it to work. He was so proud to be saving so much gas money on his new wheels!

Vinnie has his first surgery in early November. I went to the hospital with him early in the morning. Besides having our babies and being at the hospital for our oldest daughter's babies, neither of us had ever been to a hospital since we knew each other. The kids were all planning to come later in the day but none of us were concerned. Vinnie seemed unclear about whether the tumor that was discovered in the bladder was cancerous. The doctor told him that it was a simple procedure and that it would be treated and he would be fine. So we sat in the waiting room reading magazines waiting to be called into pre-op. Vinnie read a joke to me that he found in a magazine. I didn't think it was that funny, cute, but not that funny. He said he would tell the kids; they'd think it was funny. Then he got called in to pre-op, all the kids arrived by the time he was taken up to the operating room, a procedure that was out-patient surgery. We gave him kisses and waited in the waiting room.

It was suppose to be no more than an hour procedure. I began to wonder if something was wrong when it took almost two hours long. Finally I saw his urologist. He looked concerned and started telling me that it was very invasive and he wasn't sure he "got all of it". He said he'd have to wait to hear what the pathologist report would conclude. He just didn't seem sure he had helped Vinnie. Not having been convinced that Vinnie had cancer, I looked at the doctor at one point and asked, "Does my husband have cancer?" That poor doctor was so sorry to have to tell me, "yes. I thought you knew."

Ironically, when Vinnie and I were about to be married, he told me to prepare myself to be a young widow. He could not tell me why. He just had a sensing that he would die young. I never forgot that. Once, when his GP was concerned about his liver (he had hepatitis B) I thought maybe he'd die like his father did, from that. His dad's liver failed to function, he went into a coma and died almost a month later. His dad died at age 62. But then Vinnie pulled through a period of low liver function. I had hope that maybe he wasn't really going to die young, that we'd grow old together and travel alone in our RV visiting America. It was our dream.

Here I was, now being told that my husband had cancer - for sure - and that the doctor wasn't sure they "got it all". Was this it? Would cancer be the cause of his suspected early death? The doctors continued to give me hope that he was still young, strong, and would easily make it through this. I was given hope that he's make it even though they told me the next day that they didn't get all the cancer and the bladder would have to be removed. My heart sank for a moment but I wanted the fear in my heart to be wrong. I wanted to know that he was going to be okay. I wanted to know that we were not going to go down a long, hard road of taking care of a very sick man. I wanted to believe that he would be okay and we'd get an RV and travel one day. I wanted to believe that after all the hard years of marriage, we were going to get our sweet time ahead of us. I wanted to believe it. The doctors seemed to believe it, but I knew deep down in my heart that it was a real possibility that he wasn't going to make it. I kept hoping anyway. I wanted to hear that crazy green bike come chug on down the driveway once more. He never road that bike again after his surgery. Never again. But we did travel a bumpy road - for many, many months, we were to travel on a very bumpy ride.

The Journey Started

2008-10-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

Do you know how many times I've heard people say, "It seems like only yesterday"? I hate that phrase and yet in my case, it is true. I remember so many details of the day it's scary. It was October 21, 2007. I was on my way to my church and it was rather early for a Saturday morning. We were hosting a "Women's Day" at the church and I was teaching a session. I left the house around 7:30 a.m. to get my classroom ready. On the way there, I turned on the car radio...which I rarely do, by the way - I don't like radio "noise" first thing in the morning.

The radio is always tuned to K-Love (unless one of my grown daughters borrows the car and changes my channel). A woman was talking about how she had survived cancer and had prayed that God would provide her with enough income to enable her to minister and encourage other cancer patience. Her prayer was answered in an amazing way - her oncologist called her and offered her a full time job to visit his patience to pray with them!

As I listened to this story, it dawned on me that I had not really known anyone close to me with cancer. I worked with two different women who had breast cancer but they were okay after chemo and I wasn't exactly close to them, if you know what I mean. I felt compelled to pray that God would prepare my heart to one day hear the heart breaking news one day that someone I deeply love is diagnosed with cancer. After all, I am getting older and odds are I'd know someone soon who would have it. I thought deep down in the quiet place of my mind that it might one day be my mother. Little did I know that God was preparing my heart right and then to hear the news that afternoon!

After Women's Day, my husband Vinnie arrived to help a crew of other men move chairs back and get the worship center ready for Sunday morning. He stopped me before he entered the building. He casually mentioned that his urologist called him earlier that day. He'd been referred to a urologist when a seemingly stubborn bladder infection would not go away. It had been causing Vinnie discomfort for almost a year! The doctor called him that morning with the results of a recent test - he had a tumor in the bladder and it was cancerous!

As horrible as the news was, I was also overwhelmed by the fact that God, my Heavenly Father, was so gracious and kind, that He (the Holy Spirit) prompted me to turn that radio on earlier that morning and compelled me to pray for my heart to be prepared. The whole time God was doing just that! What a loving God! Perhaps there are some people who would have been mad at God for allowing their spouse and friend of almost 25 years to get cancer in the first place, but I never saw it that way. I know people get cancer. It's one of the results of living in a fallen world, a world far removed from the utopia we were meant to live in. And if Christians can't be light in the struggle of cancer, how will anyone else see God when they need to most - when they may be close to the end of their time on earth?! No, I wasn't upset that God let this happen. This stuff happens. I will never forget how very blessed I felt that God prepared me to hear this terrible sad news.

I knew we were in for a long journey. I do believe deep down in my heart I knew Vinnie would die from the cancer but I didn't know when, and I was given hope several times from doctors and thought many times that I was wrong, that he would survive it. He didn't.

I am terribly sad to no longer have my sweet Vinnie here with me. I miss his crazy voice and that Italian accent of his! I long to hear it sometimes, and though it makes me cry like a baby, I listen to his voice that I have on a CD sometimes. I will always have his voice to listen to. I'd like more than that most of the time, but I do have that and I am thankful for modern technology for this.

My pain, sorrow, and sadness are still quite raw and I am still trying to figure out what my life without Vinnie is suppose to be like. I guess I will have a different lifestyle now. It is hard to accept the title of widow but that is what I am - a widow. It will be long road to travel, an adventure I don't really want - but I am still here and I don't want to live without joy. So I look for ways to experience joy - with family and friends. Will you take the journey with me? I'd love for you to "meet" my Vinnie; TONS of people of just loved him to pieces. I know you will too. I also hope it will encourage you - after all, I have an awesome Shepherd who will be holding my hand as I walk it, and some pretty awesome people in life helped too. I'll tell you all about it and with Him in the lead, it is sure to be awesome trip!