Good morning, so much going on that it is difficult to break off and write what is on my heart. I am deep into all the bits and pieces that need to be done (and can't be done by others), when your spouse gets the winning lottery ticket to heaven. I exhort each of you to stop and take the time to be sure your spouse or the person who will be tying up the loose ends after you pass has everything lined up. Sounds morbid and sad, but it is honoring to those whom you leave behind and it is God honoring to live your life humbly, not knowing if you have tomorrow. This includes preparing for your last day, having passwords in a safe place, for married couples that both names are on everything and businesses set so they can be easily passed down/sold or dissolved. Steve would be so very sad at the crazy amount of red tape that I am going through. His heart was never to burden, and he was living very much in the present, especially since the pandemic with just surviving and meeting bills. He always thought he had tomorrow to do all the things that were seemingly not as important in the today. This all being said, My God, is a Great and Gracious God! He is a God of provision and has provided for me in every step. I am so thankful! Through this He is helping me become stronger and more capable in handling things I never thought I would need to handle.
I have a few thoughts from the past few days that I wanted to share. Sunday was our 29th anniversary. I went to my church, Purcellville Baptist, cried, laughed, hugged, shared, prayed, then I went to The Victory House for the last service for our precious Kindle who has poured so deeply into Kaitlyn over the years, as she leaves with her husband on mission to South Africa. There was more crying, laughing, sharing, hugging and praying. This is a picture of healthy grieving to me. It is exhausting and a blessing , draining and filling all at the same time. This is healing. (Disclaimer Alert!!! Grieving is very personal and looks different for each person, I in no way am judging anyone else's journey, I am just processing and finding my own way through the grieving process. ) After coming home, Kaiti and I ended up on our comfy couches binge watching till bed time. This isn't a normal thing for me, I am not a huge TV watcher and I am finding more and more that these "escapes" are not escapes at all, but a lie. It is all empty and everything is still there and for me it felt darker when I went to bed. In James 4:17 it says: So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. The entire time I was on that comfy couch, I knew that instead of feeling oppressed and honestly depressed, I should have been doing something honoring, to Steve, to God, to myself and my girls. It didn't feel healthy, it didn't feel healing. Even though I liked the show itself, one or two episodes would have been good, some down time, a little vegging out, but, going for hours was not , For ME, healthy. I find that when I look back, I have a history of procrastination and avoidance. It has been something I have worked on through Unbound ministry and I think that is why in my spirit, I had such a hard time with the choice I made for my Sunday afternoon.
Monday morning I woke up and I immediately thought, "Why didn't I grab Kaiti and Riley and go for an adventure in the Jeep??? That would have been honoring to Steve because he loved the doors and jeep top off adventure time, honoring to the three of us, God honoring, AND HEALING!" Sometimes, I get so aggravated with myself for not thinking of things till it is too late. It wasn't too late though! Tuesday morning, Kaiti and I went to West Virginia for a jeep ride, then went to Frederick and had a lovely lunch with Riley. That FELT so much better than the spirit of oppression and depression to overtake me. That was stepping into something hard, going on an adventure without Steve in his jeep, and being blessed by the beauty of His creation, the beauty of togetherness, the beauty of the freedom of the openness in the jeep Steve loved. Hard and good all at the same time. Healing. Jehovah Rophe, our healer, healer of our hearts, our spirits, our body. The Holy Spirit was telling me to make a different choice and I didn't listen. Praise God His mercies are new every morning and He flooded me with His peace and healing as I confessed my avoidance and choice to not do something life giving. While sitting on the comfy couch, watching the shows, I wasn't totally present to what I was watching. My mind was allowed to go wherever it wanted, I wasn't capturing negative and unhealthy thoughts and turning them to God. I was allowing myself to spiral deeper into despair. Sadness is ok, but despair is not. 2Corinthians 4:7-10 says: But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. Despair isn't from God, that feeling is from the enemy, Steve is with The Lord in Triumph! We, as believers will be together for an eternity, our life here is but a breath, a whisper, a vapor. My hope isn't crushed, I am not abandoned. I stand upon the Rock, Jesus, my savior. This is a painful and hard time, He is my healer and provider and through Him, we are more than conquerors.
I have to choose to flip the script in my brain. The battlefield is in the mind. I have Jesus, I have the truth, now I have to battle in my mind between worldly thought and Godly truth. I can allow myself to be crushed by thoughts that Steve isn't with me and I won't ever see him again and hide by avoidance and withdraw from others, or, do the harder thing by reaching out, sharing, hugging, crying and STANDING on the truth that we will be together again. I can get lost in the minutia of all of the business dealings and feel overwhelmed and defeated, or, I can flip the script and see that once the minutia is taken care of, there is Great opportunity in growing Steve's business and walking along other small business owners helping them in their business! I can live in a dark place of "only a month and then Kaiti is gone", which is an unhealthy binding to each other, OR, I can celebrate who she is and is becoming and release her in joy(with tears to be sure) to her new adventure and mission field. I can be in worry over all the stress and pressure that Riley and Adam have on them in their new marriage, or I can pray, trust and support them in their walk. Just like while Steve was sick, I chose to be in joyful expectation of what God could do each and every day, and even though God did not heal him the way I wanted Him to, I had His peace and blessings in the journey through Him directly and so very abundantly through so many of you. Even though Steve won that lottery ticket to heaven, I refuse to be in the place of blame and finger pointing, which are both robbers of peace and healing. I am so blessed by the conviction of The Holy Spirit, to choose higher and better thoughts and so thankful that The Lord put Unbound Ministry in my path to help me get rid of the lies I was believing about myself, really work on seeing my disobedience and sin and forgiving those who had hurt me deeply in my past. I was able to see how those hurts and traumas really formed my thought life and has helped me to capture every thought, choosing truth over lies and not allowing those thoughts to hang out and set up camp in my mind and spirit.
Friends, be intentional about thinking about what you are thinking about. Capture your thoughts, bring them to the light be saying them out loud or writing them down. Compare them to what The Word says. As you reflect on those thoughts you can throw out and refuse to partner with those thoughts that are lies ever again. This is where healing, peace and freedom come in. I have said before that there is a study that 80% of our thoughts are negative, of those 95% are repetitive! When you're free in Jesus, these diminish and you are able to see lies for the truth and can cast them out much quicker!
I have shared before my disobedience for over 10 years in journaling. I have copied all of these journal entries into the original blog that I started 10 years ago. I hope that you will join me there: https://grabbingontothepromises.blogspot.com/
Here is the link to Steve's Night of Worship and Remembrance: https://youtu.be/NJ4GvvQHAtY
Here is the link to Steve's Memorial Service at PBC: https://youtu.be/KXv_DTfH684
Love to you all and we can't thank you enough for all the prayers, meals, donations, love, notes, memories written down and pictures sent that have surrounded and held us so tightly. I pray you are each blessed in all your comings and goings in Jesus name.
