Things to Do at Three in the Morning

I remember  that there was this moment in the emergency room, sitting beside him, holding his shaking hand in mine, a little more than two weeks ago now, when I thought to myself-- just for a second, and not really even a formal thought-- that maybe I could handle him dying if I could just remember the last time I got really mad at him.

It was just a second.

And I realized that I have never been that mad at him.

Frustrated, irritated, hurt-- regular married-for-longer-than-twenty-minutes stuff-- but never enough of any of that to be okay with him being gone.

And so for two weeks, I've had trouble sleeping. Because what if his blood sugar drops too low in the night? What if I'm not awake to notice that his sleeping has gotten shallow or that his breathing is irregular? What if I'm not awake to notice that his coloring is all wrong or his hands are cold? What if...

I mean, while I'm at it, what if the front door is open? What if there's an earthquake? What if we get robbed? I am a superb player of the game of What If.

So, I have to work on not driving him crazy. I want to ask him all day long what his blood sugar is. Somehow, I have graduated from being an English Lit teacher to being a doctor. I have only a growing clue about the science of blood and sugar and carbohydrates and insulin, but I'm looking for his numbers to be between this and that, always haunted by stories of worst case scenarios.

So here's where I am learning: faith.

I've always kind of had this image in my mind of ever-increasing levels of understanding as we grow. I see it like this: life is a progression of rooms attached to each other by doorways. I see myself walking through each room, passing furniture and art and a big rug across the floor. As I walk through the room, some things are sharp and in focus, while other objects are fuzzy and darker. At the other side of the room, I put my hand on the door knob, open it, and pass into a room just like the one before...only this time, more of the objects come into focus. That grey box in the room before has become a file cabinet. The big brown thing in the corner is a lounge chair. And with each room, I see more and understand more.

I feel like two weeks ago I walked into a new room.

I walked into it as I sat by my husband's side in ICU and waited for his personality to come back. I knew I was in a new room because all the stuff I've ever done to cope up until now wasn't working. I felt like I was standing at a train station in Stockholm-- I kind of knew the direction I needed to travel in, and I sort of recognized some of the names, but I was depending on the kindness of strangers to help me work out the coins for the turnstile to get in.

There's a lot of silence in this new room. I think when I get scared I just hold myself very, very still as deeply as I can, and I wait for the danger to pass. I remember flying between Denver and Montrose, Colorado-- it was my first time flying and the plane was really small (a 12-seater). I was terrified. You could feel all the turbulence, every bump, the whole way. I was pretty much certain that I had just given my life back to the Lord in time to actually meet Him face to face. But there was this older lady next to me and she was so much more afraid than I was. I was twenty years old and really good at hiding my emotions, so I looked over at her and asked her how she was doing. She was about to cry. I reached across the narrow aisle and held her hand-- she had on grey mittens-- and asked her about her family. Talking to her and listening to her like I was bold took the sting out of my own fear.

But this time, I have been a mess.

I told a friend of mine, the day after we got home from the hospital, that if he had died, I wasn't certain that I wouldn't have just walked into traffic.

Where in the world did that come from?

The first night in ICU, before he was acting right again, I pulled out my ipad and just queued up a bunch of Bethel sermons and hit play. We both rested finally. In and out of sleep, I would wake up to hear Johnson's familiar voice speaking truth over us like a blanket, and I felt the closeness of the Lord and could feel Don's warm skin under my fingers, and I knew that the nurses knew what they were doing, and I could rest.

But as a big picture, outside the safety of the ICU, trusting Him with my husband is a whole new room. Trusting Him like this. When the fear is real, based on real things happening-- but here's what He is reminding me:

He has never changed.

He is the same God who sat with me in another room in that very same hospital-- on the literal other side of the elevators, on that same floor-- and held me when the unthinkable happened and I lost Ben all those almost ten years ago.

The room I'm in is different this time-- I can't compare the two situations at all-- but He has never changed. He is fully as faithful and trustworthy and full of help and hope as He was then. He is literally every bit as good and perfect as He was every moment of every one of those days He brought us through.

But I am different and the place He wants to take me is different. He has new things He wants to bring into focus for me and new mysteries about who He is that He wants to reveal.

This life on earth is 100% about Him. Everything else is extra. He is the beginning and the end. He is the assignment. This time here is on His mission. And He will never leave or forsake us. 

I've rambled here, but I want to encourage: if you are in a new place, in need of a new level of trust, do not despair!! Don't give up. And don't FORGET what you already know about how to cope with fear: worship. Somehow, in all of the enduring of those days in the hospital, I forgot that the key is worship. My friend messaged to remind me: "I'm sure you are doing this already, but I wanted to remind you to worship." How did I forget? How did I forget that lifting His name is the only way to get my eyes off the water? How did I forget that there is power in the name of Jesus? 

If you are in a new room, think of new wine skins and think of manna, new every day. The measure of faith I have walked in suddenly isn't enough. He's taking me to a deeper place. The milk that has satisfied my soul is not enough-- He is drawing me to the greater meat of His word. Ever increasing understanding of who He is is the only thing that will satisfy this new ache for understanding that is in my heart.

And there is PLENTY of that. 

So what do I do when fear grabs me by the throat at 3am? I'm headed for the rock of my salvation. I'm headed for His word. I'm headed for worship. No more getting pushed around by fear and powerlessness. 

God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7