Love and Trouble and Joy...LIFE Revisited

Thanking God for eight more years of life for my darling husband. Every day is a gift.

This is the post I wrote the week of John’s widow maker heart attack eight years ago this week.

Thank you, O merciful God.

John at MVH 7-14-11

LOVE and TROUBLE and JOY …LIFE

In this world, you will have trouble...[like heart attacks]...but take courage, I have overcome the world! These things have I spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full! John 16:33;15:11

I'm just beginning to process my husband John's heart attack that happened earlier this week.  Believe it or not, despite the fears and tears (that were locked up inside of me for a time), I've had the incredible peace and joy that the Lord promises.  Those of you who have walked consciously in and with the Lord through trials know what I mean!

The joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 10
In Thy presence there is fulness of joy... Psalm 16:11

The Lord has shown Himself near and caring through...

....giving me two significant verses to hang onto:  Phil 1:6 and Isaiah 26:3-4 ...my neighbor Nancy and my friend Penny dropping everything early in their day to play and pray with our two young grandsons who had slept over so I could follow after the ambulance to the hospital ...a Christian male nurse grabbing both our hands and praying with us just after John arrived in the ICU ...my being able to watch my husband "chatting it up" with the medical personnel, showing forth the loving Jesus who lives within him ...our son Jeremy and daughter-in-law Cortney driving 7 hours and ending their 10 year anniversary trip early to be here ...our daughter Beth in California and my friend Maria, after a long day at work, each calling the night I needed to "unlock some frozen tears." ...and of course, many loving family and friends sending timely messages via facebook, texts, emails, calls, and visits (Thank you so much!)

As if all this love wasn't enough, I've experienced the Lord's "winks" this week -- little delightful "serendipidies" proving that He is here and He cares -- namely through a poem and a song.

I've never been much of a "poetry buff"...just never got it until I lived life a little more.  Now I get it!  The poem that "captured me" was hidden at the end of a novel I was struggling for months to finish!  Now I know why I struggled so long...God's timing!  I needed that poem this week :)  And I'll let it speak for itself:

Life
Paul Laurence Dunbar

A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble,
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!

A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With a smile to warm and the tears to refresh us;
And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter;
And that is life!

AMEN!

Then there's the song.  A few weeks ago, a friend told us about a movie she had just seen on Netflix.  John and I watched and enjoyed it.  But the thing that stayed with us most was the theme song.  We just couldn't get it out of our minds -- the melody was so haunting and romantic.  So we found it and ordered it on Amazon.

Well, guess what?  It came while John was in the hospital.  So the night of his "release", we sat and listened to it...talking, crying, not talking, laughing, just being together...and agreeing with Robert Browning,

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'

The Water is Wide

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
Neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall cross my true love and I
I lean'd my back against an oak
Thinking it was a mighty tree
But first it bent and then it broke
So did my love prove false to me
I put my hand in some soft bush
Thinking the sweetest flow'are to find
I prick'd my finger to the bone
And left the sweetest flow'are behind
O love is handsome and love is kind
Gay as a jewel when it is new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like the morning dew 
The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
Neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall cross my true love and I