Celebrating Life and New Beginnings

February 14^th, you all know the day.  The stores are adorned with pink and red, flowers overflow the entrance, heart shaped balloons bounce like bobble heads at every cash register, chocolate bars and candy wrappers are all color coordinated pink, red and white, maybe a splash of purple.  It’s the day when we buy chocolate in red and pink heart shaped boxes, a bouquet of a dozen red roses or a mix of white, pink, and red carnations.  Tiny candy hearts with words and phrases written on them like, “Be Mine.”  “Love You.”  “Be my Valentine.” “XOXO.”  “True Love.”  “Love Bug.”  ‘Dinner reservations for two’, is the common phrase among restaurants.  Some choose instead a relaxing candle lit dinner at home.  Valentines Day 2008 looked far from those idyllic scenarios above for my family and me. 

That week started out as a somewhat normal one, Sarah and I had been house/horse sitting for some friends.  Not being morning people we were both pretty tired and not totally feeling ourselves that week from getting up early to feed the horses.  When I started to feel groggy, feverish, and achy, as well as being rather puffy, we thought that I might just have the mumps.  But as the week went by, I kept getting worse and more symptoms.  By the night of the 14^th,Valentine’s day, I was lethargic, stiff neck and joints, so much so that it hindered my movement, unresponsive, so tired that I could only stand a short while before I had to sit down and close my eyes and rest; I was so tired that when I sat to rest, I would fall asleep.  Little did we know I wasn’t sleeping during those times, I was having seizures.  My body was going into shock as meningitis ran through my spine and head, in turn, infecting my brain, turning into encephalitis.  That night I shouldn’t have lived. 

When I woke up in the morning, I knew He could have taken me home that night but in His grace He didn’t, because He wasn’t finished with me yet.  The next couple days that followed that night people and doctors confirmed this.  As my sister and mom were at the grocery store they saw a friend who was on the prayer chain at our church who had heard the prayer request for me that night.  They started talking and he timidly tried to ask how I was doing.  As they told him I was slowly doing better, his face relaxed a bit, and he said, ‘The reason I hesitated asking how she was doing was because that night when I got the prayer request I had a dream that night that the Lord took her home.”  And when my mom and sister went to pick up our friends who we were house sitting for from the airport, they told them how sick I was and about that night.  The husband, who was a paramedic, response was that it was amazing that I lived.        

The days and months that followed were excruciating and oppressive.  It was my graduating year, yet I was relearning a lot of subjects as simple as how to read.  As all my friends were off visiting colleges, I was visiting another doctor or specialist, none of who had answers for my family and me.  We often left each visit with just more questions.  “How did I get this?  Where did it come from?  What exactly did I have?  What could I/we do to help?  How long would this last?  What was the next step?  How do we go on from here?  What was the purpose?  What was I supposed to do with all this?  Why wouldn’t God heal me?  Why didn’t God give the doctors and us answers?  Why me?  Why then?  Why that?  Why not?  Why?”  Thoughts and questions that just never seemed to settle or be quieted.  It wasn’t just being sick and the fear that came with that; fear I would stop breathing in my sleep, or fear of not remembering as I had forgotten people, what they looked like, sounded like, people close to me, memories; not knowing exactly what was wrong with me and nothing and no one could help me, heal me.  Feeling absolutely helpless.  But what was most devastating was watching my hopes and dreams slip through my fingers, out of grasp and out of view.  Having all my plans, dreams, ideas and expectations be taken away from me in a night; left me with a void, holes in my life that I didn’t know how to fill or how they would be filled, if ever. 

February 14^th holds a different meaning for me.  It marks the day when my life got turned upside down.  The day that caused such an earthquake to my faith and life, and left me feeling unloved, abandoned, forgotten and desperately perplexed.  It is the same day we celebrate love; a day that’s supposed to be happy, sweet, and romantic, centered around relationship and deeply caring for someone else.  Yet it held quite the opposite.  Even after I started to slowly heal physically, spiritually, I still was full of questions: God, are you there?  Can you hear my prayers?  Do you even care?  God, do you err?  Is He fair?  I knew the right answer for all of these, but they sure didn’t feel right or true.  And for the most part, this time of year I would look back at all that I lost and mourn and fall back into those countless unanswered questions and old invalidated feelings.   But I’ve learned on this journey that, “God’s ways don’t always make sense, but He is trustworthy…”  And even when I couldn’t feel His presence and He seemed to have left me, I knew from His word He would and will not ever leave me, nor forsake me.  As simple and as frequent we as Christians have heard that, it’s the truth, and what got me through that year.   

And now I choose not to look back and see only loss, but to look back and see how far I’ve come; instead of thinking my life ended, when all my plans for my life had ended, I was given a new beginning.  I can look back now and see all the God-stops He left for me to find.  Roads I would have never gone down or probably been open to walking down because they weren’t in my plans for my life.  Friends and relationships made that I would have never imagined I’d have the pleasure of knowing and holding them all so dear to me.  Life lessons and opportunities I would have missed, had God not divinely interrupted my life.  The list goes on, and looking back now, I wouldn’t trade any of those for a life without the illness. 

No, it hasn’t been easy, no I haven’t always had this perspective looking back on that night; there has been countless times I doubted that God still had my best interest in mind.  Yet, as I’m on this journey, the one theme I see or hear or learn from this is trust, trust in His unfailing love and to never forget His faithfulness.  God knew what He was doing when He allowed meningitis to overtake my body and encephalitis to infect my brain.  I realize now that when my life felt like it was falling apart He was rebuilding it.  Where there was great loss, Jesus resurrected great life.  I am living proof my Redeemer still redeems and the God I serve is still the Lord of new beginnings.  What the enemy intended for evil, God has turned and continues to turn for my good and for His glory.  “You gave me life and faithful love, and Your care has guarded my life.”  Job 10:12

As surely as Valentines Day comes every year, His unfailing love continues for me.  Every time another year passes, I am reminded of love and faithfulness, His love for me, toward me, giving me a second chance at life.  I stand here saved – surprised to be loved!  “He sent from on high, He took me; He drew me out of many waters… He brought me out into a broad place; he rescued me because He delighted in me.” – Psalm 18:16-19