It Wasn't Supposed To Be This Way

My dream was pretty typical…grow up, marry the love of my life, have a bunch of kids and live happily ever after in our cute two story home with the white picket fence. Throw in a nice little dog for good measure.

Part of the dream did come true. I married Rob, the love of my life, had four beautiful kids, lived in a two story home minus the white picket fence and add the little dog and two big dogs. Sounds like a good life until that day…

In 2001 my husband developed what we thought was a bad cold with bronchitis. He was susceptible to upper respiratory infections and got them once a year like clockwork. This particular year, we didn't think anything out of the ordinary until it refused to go away. Our primary doctor was out of the country for a while so my husband saw her assistant. After several visits with no end in sight, she referred us to a pulmonary specialist. It was when he did a routine endoscopy that we were blindsided by the word no one wants to hear…cancer.

I still remember that exact moment the doctor gave us the news. Time stood still as my husband and I held onto each other and cried. Our four children sat out in the waiting room oblivious to the fact that their lives had changed forever.

Driving home from the hospital that day. I remember talking to God and saying, "I just want to know how this is going to work out Lord. Will he live or will he die? I just want to know." I was under the impression that if I knew what was coming, I'd be able to handle it better.

Over the next three years we prayed, quoted Scriptures on healing and refused to entertain any comments to the contrary. When my husband was in his last days, the doctors tried to prepare me for the inevitable but I refused to give up. Surely God was going to intervene. I had worship music playing in his room around the clock and even went so far as to throw a nurse out of his room for speaking negatively about my husband's condition. A few days later, I found myself a widow and a single mother wondering how we would survive.

It's been over 20 years now. It's been a long, hard road in many ways. There have been ups and downs, successes and failures. When I look back at the journey, I'm amazed at how I made it through.

For the first ten years, I could barely pray. I questioned myself and I questioned God. Was my faith not strong enough? Where did I go wrong? I was supposed to be a woman of faith. I felt like I was the victim of a cruel joke and its name was "disappointment." I was disappointed in myself, in others and especially God. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

I remember taking a walk on a country road one summer's day and once again asking God how I got it all wrong. I heard Him say to me ever so gently, "Faith is still believing even when it doesn't go your way." Those words penetrated my soul. You see, I had felt like a fool for believing in Him. I would think about all the people who would sadly look at me while I stood my ground believing for Rob's healing.
It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Disappointment is a forerunner to despair. It needs to be recognized and dealt with before you fall into its trap. The other area it loves to take us is self-pity…I know it well. Neither one is a place where we belong.

One of the ways to defeat disappointment is to face it. As I mentioned earlier, I had a hard time after Rob passed away because I felt like a fool denying the fact that he was dying. I hoped all those doctors and nurses would forget I existed, but God in His mercy had a different plan.

It was several years after Rob's death and I was talking to a lady in my church. She was a nurse practitioner who was connected with our local hospital. As we were talking, she mentioned that she met one of the nurses who had been in the ICU when Rob was there. In fact, she was the very nurse I told to leave his room. The nurse practitioner went on to tell me that this nurse had never forgotten me…I started to cringe but what she said next almost brought me to my knees. She told me that the nurse said she had never seen such faith and it made her go and search for her own. I was humbled and amazed.

Life is full of disappointments for each one of us but I'm beginning to see that good can come out of them. The circumstances may not change but I want to believe that God sees what we don't. It may not be the way I thought it was supposed to be but it may be His. As I heard on that country road, "Faith is about believing even when it doesn't go your way."