Lent is Almost Here

Ash Wednesday is next week! I've been trying to get back into the swing of being Catholic. It may seem strange to say that, but I have struggled the last 8 1/2 years. Divorce and Catholic do not go together. I never thought that I would be a divorced Catholic, much less ever get married again.  My therapist reminds me that after the annulment, the Church sees me as never having been married. So, marrying Marty is technically my first marriage. (My therapist is also a Deacon in the Church)

This has been a hurdle for me to get over. I have prayed and prayed for God to help me get over this hurdle. I finally feel like I've put the last 8 1/2 years behind me. It was a nightmare that is now over. It takes a lot to get over a spouse who suddenly hates you and leaves-- especially when you believed in the vows you made before God. 

The holidays with my children and grandchildren were very hard. Every single time it was a reminder of our broken family. I'm okay now. God has shown me how he restores what is broken. 

"I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer work, my great army which I sent among you." ~Joel 2:25

Sean still lives with me after his graduation from College. He decided to stay when Marty moved in. Over the last 5 years, he and Marty have developed a really great relationship.  He and Marty have done car projects, projects around the house and enjoy going to the gun range together, as well. It has done my heart well to see this. In the first 3 years, I was happy that his best friend's dad helped with his resume and other things where a son might need the help of a dad. Sean and his best friend were here for me and praying when I started my dating journey 3 1/2 years after C left. 

All this to say that I have seen where God restores what is broken. I have developed a closer relationship with Sean through this trial. Every Sunday that we are home, we go to Mass together and on holy days, as well.  I also believe that I have gotten closer to my oldest son and his wife through this, as well. My youngest is a blog entry for another time.

While I never lost faith, I feel like I have been going through the motions for the last 8 1/2 years. I know compared to many crosses, mine are light.  I think it has been a dry period. I once told our current pastor that it has been hard to go to Mass seeing all the whole families - moms and dads with their kids. I felt like a failure and sometimes still do. It all stems from being a practicing Catholic and divorce being against my religion. I homeschooled my boys for 17 years using a devout Catholic curriculum and sometimes it feels like I have failed them. I never wanted my kids to have a broken family. Sighs.

What's this got to do with now? I want to do more than just go through the motions. I'm hoping that making a bigger effort to get out of the dry spell I've been in will help my faith life. I want to feel whole and normal again. Don't get me wrong, I am very happy and life is good. I've found a man who has taught me what it is to BE LOVED.  It is honestly my brain and I need to get back to what I learned in Divorce Care-- I need to go back and remember who it is that God says I am. 

For Lent, I am going to make sure to take time each day to remember who it is that God says I am. I want to reflect upon scripture and grow in His Word. Marty and I have also decided that we will also use Lent to do better with our diet.  With his type 2 diabetes we NEED to do better. It is hard to eat healthy every day, so we thought Lent would be a good time to get in the habit-- for Jesus. 

I know tat God can restore what is broken -- our spiritual life, relationships and even our health. I'm getting my house ready for the fasting and healthy eating and I'm going to find an app this weekend with daily Lenten reflections. 

Restore me, O Lord. 

Faith to Not be Healed

A friend (in real life) and fellow rare disease mom wrote a blog post yesterday titled "Faith to Not be Healed". You can read her blog entry here. It was such a timely blog post about her reaction to a clip she'd heard and her daughter's recent diagnosis. This week, I have been asking God why He has chosen to allow our family to deal with three rare diseases (Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome, Mitochondrial Disease and Eosinophilic Esophagitis) and asked Him why He would give my boys these diseases and also allow some of the treatments not to work for them.  We found out Monday that my son's scope looks to be unchanged from his previous two. Meaning the new medication he started back in December isn't working.

So, reading Kathy's post really hit home today. Do we have the faith to not be healed? We know that God doesn't heal everyone. Even when Jesus walked this earth, He did not heal everyone, so why would we expect everyone to be healed now?  So often over the years, people have said to us, "If you have faith, they will be healed," and we even had one lady say, "You don't need to bring them to the doctor, it is God's will that they be healed." It's amazing what people say.

How do we react when it just isn't God's will that we or our children are healed? I believe God uses healing just as much as He uses suffering in the absence of His healing. Do we see God suffering? This week being Holy Week, I have been meditating on the Lord's Passion. A lot.

We've been dealing with rare, chronic illnesses for almost twenty years. While we pray for healing daily, we are confronted with reality when tests reveal that healing hasn't taken place. Or has it?  I think healing comes in many forms. Maybe God has chosen to heal us spiritually instead of healing our children (or us) physically. I think over the course of twenty years, God HAS healed us spiritually. His grace gets us through the rough times and the crazy illnesses that pop up due to the rare diseases my children battle daily. God uses our suffering to encourage others. Paul says the following:

2 Cor 1:5-7- "For as Christ's sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement."

Sometimes, I can easily accept God's will. Other times, I am tired, cranky and fight acceptance. I'm human! Prayer helps, but I can't say that I always accept His will, if I am being honest with myself.  I understand redemptive suffering and scripture is replete with examples of suffering with Christ and accepting our sufferings patiently.  1 Peter 4:13 reminds us, "But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ; so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly."

It's just not always easy to rejoice in our sufferings, is it?  My middle son was hospitalized the week before Christmas last year because his uvula was nicked during a routine upper GI scope and it became infected. Who has ever heard of an infected uvula? I'm here to tell you that it happens. It was difficult to say, "Wow, Jesus, I'm sure glad you allowed this odd infection to set in after we've already spent the week at the hospital, I'm going to rejoice in this." It doesn't come naturally for anyone. Many a saint has worked a lifetime to gain acceptance of his suffering. While I hope to one day be counted among the saints in heaven, I've got a long way to go.

God also gives us the grace to laugh at some of these odd trials we manage to overcome with His help. In my opinion, laughter IS grace.

Name the appendage and my people have had an infection on it. I could do a stand up comedy routine just on the unusual and rare infections. If I had a penny for every time I'd heard, "We've never seen anything like this."  Sometimes, people who haven't faced the medical trials that we have faced look in horror because we are laughing.  We can laugh or cry. We choose to laugh. With the help of God's grace, of course. Sometimes we can't even begin to laugh until we cried.

It's Holy Thursday and I'm doing what I've done many a Holy Week in the past.....waiting on the final biopsy reports and test results. Slowly, we are accepting that the scope on Monday doesn't look any better than the previous scopes in December and October. It's difficult to accept that medications don't  knock the disease out. The biopsy results will tells us if the medications are working AT ALL.  We pray for healing, we pray for a cure and we keep working at accepting God's will in all of this. We pray for the grace to patiently accept the suffering we encountered for the grace to be able to unite our sufferings to His.

Tomorrow is Good Friday and I am always reminded that every Good Friday brings an Easter Sunday, a  Resurrection Sunday. This week, as I have pondered Christ's passion, I've also been reminded of what Paul says in 1 Colossians 1:24, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His body, which is the church."

Somewhere in all of this, we find the faith to not be healed. God is good.