Hearing the Sounds and Update on Todd in Tioga Sept 17 am

 
Sitting here on Tande's porch, I hear the sound of geese and ducks honking their calls, of cows mooing off in the distance.  The birds are calling out their cries as they fly over the lake.  Listening closer there are crickets and frogs, bringing forth their songs.  I'm starting to hear the rustle of the grass as the wind picks up.  I hear the dogs playing in the drive way.  Off in the distance, the roar of semi's rolling down the road, clicking as they pass over the joints in the highway, the hustle and bustle of this oil field life.  Some sounds so easy to hear, others you have to focus on to really catch it.  

But there's a sound my ears can't pick up, the sounds of The Lord speaking in a still small voice, not the sounds my natural ears hear, but sounds of the Spirit that only my spirit can hear.  Those are the sounds I so need to hear.  Sometimes life can so clog my hearing, life gets busy and messy, and my hearing gets faint.  Help me to hear.

    Now I hear the sounds of the dogs claws clicking on the deck while they come to where I'm sitting, I think my quiet has ended. :-)

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. ... Your strength comes from God’s grace,... . (Hebrews 13:8, 9 NLT)

My strength will come from God's grace. My verse for today.   God I need your divine influence in my life today! 

Update on Todd

  We arrived in Tioga about 1:30 yesterday. My Dad drove us up here in his vehicle.  Todd slept till about Minot, and was fairly peaceful till we got close to Tioga and then he started to try to get the door open and get out of the car.  

   He was extremely agitated on entering the Nursing Home, which we all kind of expected to happen.  Within the first half hour or so he managed to  break the faucet in the bathroom in his room.  (the water up here is very corrosive, and it must have been fairly corroded, so when he grabbed it, he just bent it over (Todd is still VERY strong).  

   I had to meet and sign papers with several people.  While meeting with one of them, Todd managed to pull down his pants and pee in the lobby.  This is so hard for me to understand as Todd has always been the most modest person I have ever known.  Just ask my boys, they can't even count on one hand the number of times they've seen their Dad in his shorts.  That just wasn't proper to Todd.  Now because of all this awful disease, he's dropping his pants in public and peeing.  My heart breaks more.

    Todd paced up and down the hall ways, and kept entering other residents rooms.  Either I or one of the CNA's kept having to get him out.  He was acting very angry at me.  He kept pushing me away when I tried to walk with him.  At one point he grabbed my hand and tried to pull my wedding ring off.  I told him "No, I'm always your wife, this does not mean I do not love you." I tried to tell him that I don't want this any more than he does.  My heart broke some more.

    At one point a man who was there visiting his mother came up to me and said, "Is that guy, gonna keep going into people's rooms?"  (Todd had walked into his mother's room I guess).  I replied back to him "That 'guy' is my husband, and yes, he probably will do that for awhile." and then I walked away crying. (I guess I looked like a staff member as I had on white pants and a white shirt jacket, today I'll make sure I'm in jeans)  The man did come up and apologize, sort of, for his comments.  He said it just scared his mother when Todd came in.

    Early this morning I got a call from the nursing home that they had found Todd on the floor about 4:30 this morning.  It looked like he had fallen.  They're not sure what had happened, as he had been sleeping in his bed.  His knees are red like that's where he hit when he fell, but other than that they couldn't find any other injury.

    We did get a visit yesterday, from a Pastor Jeremy from the Assembly church in Tioga.  He brought Todd a nice arrangement of flowers with a cowboy boot in it. How kind and thoughtful of him.  God bringing strangers into our lives, to help and stand with us.

    I can't begin to tell you how my heart breaks for Todd.  I know I'm not alone in this world in having to put a loved one in a nursing home, but when he's only 52, there's just something that makes it even harder.  Just by looking at Todd you would never know there's anything wrong. He's still as good looking as he was when we first met and married. (how come he still looks the same, and I don't? sigh...)  As hard as this is for Todd to adjust to this change, it's also hard for me.  I fight constantly the feelings that I've betrayed my best friend.  I have to constantly go back to the Word of God where it says  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way." (Proverbs 3:5, 6 GNT)   Todd loved this translation of this verse. "Never rely on what you think you know." 

 Trust.  Something that's easily said, but not so easily done.    May I today learn to trust Him even more.

     Thank you again for letting me bare my heart in public. This is not easy to do.  I'm not perfect, I struggle daily living this life just like you probably do.   I know so many of you love Todd very much, and want to be informed as to how he is, for those that don't care for him or me, I doubt you're taking the time to read any way.