Ellipsis

   I learned a new word today, but I've known how to use it for years.  Ellipsis.  It's a grammar term, you know the three dots used at the end of a sentence to say there's kind of a pause, there's more...   Or can also be used to show something has been left out, like in quoting  someone,  or some passage, but you leave out part of the quote that was not neccesary to make your point.

     But what does that have to do with life?  It's good to know how to use it in writing, getting the grammar right (something I struggle with- grammar) but you're not reading this to get a lesson in grammar.   (I certainly am not the one to give a lesson in grammar!)  Can I relate it to  those times in our life, when we feel like we've been put on hold, or life has been paused.  When God doesn't seem to be answering our prayers, at least not in the way we want, or think He should.  There's just this pause...

    It's in those moments, that you find out what's in you.  Do you give up and throw in the towel? Blame it on God and say, "See He didn't answer, He doesn't care," or get real spiritual and say, "It wasn't God's will,"  or do you hold onto God's promises, even when everything doesn't make sense, and say, "I don't care what it looks like, I don't care what's happened, God's Word is true, and that's that!"  It's learning to put an ellipsis, or maybe a comma, where life is trying to throw you a period.

    I can't tell you how many times, I've been in that ellipsis stage of my life.  When I've prayed and prayed, and nothing happened, when every prayer I pray 'feels' like it's hitting the ceiling (if it got that far) and falling back down to earth.  But those are the times when I've stood my ground and said, I don't care if feels like God's not answering, and that He feels a million miles away, I KNOW that the Word says He'll never leave me nor forsake me.  I also know that the Word says that if we pray according to His word, He WILL answer.  Some miracles come after that pause, some are still on the way.

   I remember in the early years of our marriage, Todd and I wanted kids so bad.  Especially me, I had this incrediable longing to be a mom.  But month after month went by and still I was not pregnant.  After a while, people started joshing us about - aren't we ever going to have kids?  Some went so far as to send me sexy little nighties saying maybe that would help.  What they didn't know, was the heartache we were going through.  Disappointment at its greatest degree.  We prayed diligently, I studied God's word fervently seeking out everything God had to say about children.  I have a notebook, with every scripture I could find that mentioned children and child bearing written down.  I lived daily in that notebook, standing on God's promises.  I remember once Todd and I wrote out our prayer based upon the Word that we knew God had promised us children.  Shortly after that I  became pregnant, only to carry the child for two months, and lose it in miscarriage.  I was devastated.  Everything we'd prayed for, everything we were dreaming for that child, died.  I remember my doctor telling me, oh don't worry, give yourself a month or two to and you'll get pregnant again.  I so wished that would have been true, but month after month passed us by, and then year after year.  

    Every meal time, Todd and I prayed, "Your blessing will be upon our food and water, and you will take sickness far from us, and there shall be none barren in the land." (Ex 23: 25, 26)  Now folks, we weren't just all about prayer, and not doing our part.  There was only one immaculate conception, that's not what we were thinking.  But when things weren't going according to how things should go, and the doctors were saying it didn't look hopeful, you need a miracle.  

    For our 5th wedding anniversary, we went to the first Glory and Power meetings, that year held in Eveleth, MN.  Jim Kaseman and Brad Brade Ministires hosted the meetings.  I remember many wonderful things from those meetings.  But it was at the end of the meetings, Todd and I went up to the guest minister and asked him, if he and his wife would pray for us.  (They had a combined family of 12 children, both having been widows and remarried joining their large families).  The wife said, she wouldn't. I was shocked.  She told us, every time, she's prayed for someone to have a baby, she'd gotten pregnant, and her husband said, no more children.  She smiled at us, and said, she knew someone who loved to pray for people to have children, and she called Sally Ann Kittle over to us, and asked her to pray.  This wonderful woman of God, laid her hands on us, and prayed a simple prayer, with her southern accent.  "Oh Lord, just fix whatever is wrong, and bless them with a child. Amen"  That was it, but it's what she said next that I knew there was faith there.  She handed us a card with her name and address on it, and said, "Everyone I've prayed for has had a baby within a year, please send me an announcement."  Well, exactly a year and 10 days later, our son Tyson was born.  How we rejoiced beyond measure.  Todd's face was smiling from ear to ear, my Dad chuckled and said, he was worried Todd's face might break in half.  But when you've seen the fullfillment of years of praying and standing on God's word, and you're holding it in your hands, you can't help but smile and rejoice.

    On another side note, on the 20th Anniversary of the Glory and Power meetings, I got the privilege of attending the meetings again.  They were held in Willmar, MN that year.  I got up and shared how twenty years ago, there was a miracle that took place on the very first year of meetings.  Now twenty years later, Tyson was attending church and school in Willmar, and was even playing drums for the worship team for the Glory and Power meetings.  How God brings us full circle when we don't give up and don't quit.  I would not take those unanswered prayers as ending in a period.  A failure.  I saw them as an ellipsis...  there was more to come, there was only a pause till the answer came.

    I could give story after story in our lives of similar miracles, where we didn't give up, even when it looked like we should.  God came through. But there are also some dreams we let die, I'm sorry to say, cause we did give up, maybe some of them needed to die, maybe some of them we gave up to soon.

    So what happens when you have a dream or prayer you let die, or it really did have a period at the end of it?  There can't be an ellipsis any more.  What do you do now?  

    I think of the biggest period ending in my life so far was Todd moving on to heaven.  There's no bringing him back now (not that I would want him to come back and continue suffering either.  I do rejoice that he is free of all the suffereing, but oh how I miss him.)   What do I do now?  Did God fail?  No.  Did I fail?  No.  Did our prayers fail?  No.  But how do we handle what looks like more of a failure than a miracle?  By continuing to keep trusting the same God who makes the miracles.

     I know a lot of people could be wondering why didn't Todd get healed, it's not like we didn't pray, it's not like we didn't have faith.  Some people could be angry at God, some people have gotten angry at me and blamed me.  But God didn't fail, and neither did I. 

     For years, Todd and I both stood upon the scripture that his soul would be restored. (Psalm 23).  Our soul is; our mind, our will, our emotions, and in Todd's case because of the accident and his injury, his soul was damaged.  His physical brain suffered damage, that affected his thinking, his emotions, his will.  Over the last twelve years, I watched him slowly deteriorate more and more. Most things other people wouldn't pick up on, as you had to be with him 24/7 to really see some of it.  I was really in denial for many years, thinking he can't be getting worse, it's just my imagination.   I remember years ago, someone said to me they thought Todd acted like someone with dementia, oh that ticked me off.  No, it's just a brain injury.  I didn't realize at that time, that brain injuries can lead to dementia.  And as far as I've read and studied, there is no cure medically for dementia.  But by the time Todd was medically diagnosed, June of 2011, he was already in the severe stage of dementia.   The severe stage is the second to last stage, before death takes over. His mental score on the test was a nine, normal is 30.  I was like, no way, this can't be dementia, that's only for old people right?  I upped the amount of prayer, knowing medically nothing could be done, we needed a miracle, one of those, man says this, but God...  There it is, the ellipsis.  I knew beyond a shadow of doubt, God is full able, to do the impossible, and frankly, the impossible was what we needed done, we needed a miracle.  I had killed my lion and bear (reference to young King David in the Bible before he killed Goliath), and I knew this Goliath was gonna go down.  

     About a year ago, the Lord started showing me things, I did not like seeing.  He also started showing Tyson too and he didn't like it either.  Three times, I had visions of Todd's funeral.  Not an open vision, but a clear vision in my minds eye.  I was ticked beyond words, and shaken.  That's not what I was praying about and believing God for.  I wanted Todd well, and whole here on earth.  But God kept showing me differently.  Why? I don't know, except he was preparing me, for what was to come.  But at the time, it made me pray all the harder, I felt as long as there is breath in him there is hope, hope for the miracle I (and many others praying with me) wanted so bad.  At first I thought, maybe God is showing me this, for me to pray so that it doesn't happen.  That has happened before for me, where God showed me in advance something is going to happen, and it wasn't God's will, so I prayed, and the problem was stopped, or in one case at least lessened it's negative outcome.

    All this time, though when God kept showing me these visions, I felt like God was a million miles away, I felt like he was ending the sentence with a period.  I didn't like it.  Last November sometime, after leaving the nursing home one weekend, I heard on the inside of me, "He'll be gone before Christmas."  Man, that really made me mad.  I figured that has to be the devil putting bad thoughts in my head, I didn't want to believe that one, but in retrospect, it really was God, again preparing me, telling me what's gonna happen.  

    I know I've asked God why a few times, why did it have to end this way?  He's never directly answered me.  But I also know, that something aren't for my knowing, somethings were between Todd and God, and it's none of my business or anyone elses.  Maybe I'll know when I get to heaven, but I think by then it really won't matter.  And to be frank, knowing why won't make things any different, it's really the wrong question to be asking.

     So was Todd's death really a period at the end?  I'm starting to see differently.  It wasn't the healing I prayed for and wanted with all my heart, but like Kristi said to me recently, it still was a win for Todd, he is in heaven free of pain and suffering, he is rejoicing.  His legacy still lives on in our kids, and in me.  

      There were dreams that Todd and I had together, that I'm starting to feel they need to be resurrected, things we let go of or lost sight of. He's not here to finish them, but I'm still here.  Yah, it won't probably get done the way Todd would have done it, but Jesus and me, still can get 'er done.  I still remember one of the last days Todd was in the hospital, and my sisters and Kristi and I were all in to see Todd.   He hadn't slept for a couple of days, and was refusing to sit down or lie down.  We started singing.  I coaxed him over to the bed, and sat with him there.  Before long while we were singing, he fell asleep, so we laid him down on the bed, but continued to sing.  There was a very sweet presence of The Lord in that awful hospital room.  I began to pray for Todd again, like I'd done so many times before, but this time, I prayed, "As long as there is breath in you Todd, I stand on the Word for your healing, but if you choose to go on home and not finish your course here on earth, I want you to know, I'm asking God to not only help me finish my course but yours too.  I don't know if that's possible, or even if God does those kind of things, but that's what I'm asking."  Whether God answers that prayer through me, or my kids, I will always know that the life of Todd Reuer ended but God...

      I think the but God... part will be  not so much how there wasn't a miracle of a getting out of the suffering, but the miracle of God bringing us through.  Before Todd died, I had told several people, there really was only two choices, 1. Todd would be miraclously healed, or 2. Todd would die and go to heaven. Both were a win for him, the second would just be hard for us.   We all know #2 is what happened.  So now, God working through us, bringing us through to total victory and healing in our hearts.   My hearts cry is to bring glory to my Lord.  That what I've been through somehow, can be turned into a victory to help others turn their sorrow into joy unspeakable and full of glory.  

A Grief Thermometer

      When I got home from the last Grief Share Group, I was sitting at the piano singing and playing, and I was thinking about a question I had asked the group.  

    "How does one know when they're through grief?" 

    The general consensus from the group was that you're never really ever through it, as you never forget your loved one, but there comes a point when joy replaces that pain.  One lady described it as, one day you realize your every thought hasn't been on your loved one who's gone.  The pain is replaced with joy.  Someone else shared, it's when both joy and pain can coincide at the same time.  

    As I was playing piano and singing, I had this thought, wouldn't it be great if you could have a grief thermometer.  You just insert it into your heart, and it shows if you still have pain that needs healing, or even better, you're on the road to totally being healed.  But in real life there isn't such a tool.  Kristi mentioned that maybe our thermometer is when we think of them or remember something about them, and there's no longer that pain in our heart.  Maybe  this thermometer  could also detect other things in our heart that need fixing too.

   The Bible puts it this way, "I will turn your mourning into gladness; I will give you comfort and joy instead of sorrow." (Jer. 31:13)

    One thing I've learned as I've walked this road of grief, is everyone grieves differently.  What's grieving for one may not be even be an issue with someone else.  This is true because every loss is different.  Even if I met someone with a similar loss, it still would be different, because they didn't have the relationship Todd and I had together, nor I have their relationship.  But I can certainly understand their pain.  Even though it may differ from mine, I still know the feeling of the pain of loosing someone you love so much.     

    It seems strange to think it's joy that replaces your sorrow and grief.  It's not like you're joyful that your loved one is gone, but there comes a joy in your life, that you know you can go on, even though they're not physically with you any longer.  A strength of knowing God is still with me, even though Todd has moved. 

    We were asked in the Grief Share class, what we've all learned and gained from it.  Several people shared their hearts, and how God was helping them in the journey.  When it came to me, I said I felt going through grief has begun to show me who I am.  Who is Kelley without Todd.  While visiting my sister-in-law Georgia over Easter, she made the comment to me, it was never just Kelley or just Todd, it was always Todd and Kelley, cause we did everything together.  That's what being a partner is all about, that's what marriage is, togetherness.  I've heard it described so many times, and I've said it myself, I feel like I've been ripped in two, and only half of me is left.  Now to find out who that remaining half can be all by itself.   God has had me on a rather unusual path, I've been describing it as a journey.  It's hard to explain, but I know it's working.  This wouldn't be the road to restoration for some people, but it is for me. God always knows what's best for us.   I told a good friend of mine recently, there's a lioness arising within me, and you better get ready cause she's about to roar. (To really understand that you need to read the book Lioness Arising by Lisa Bevere)

     Do I still hurt at times?  Oh yes.  Do I still cry?  Yup.  Is my heart healing? Most definitely!  Every teardrop is one drop closer to a completely healed heart.  Someone once told me, that tears are a good washing, but laughter is a good dry cleaning.  I kind of like that.  They both bring a washing and cleansing of our soul.  For a merry heart does good like a medicine.  So don't feel sorry for me if I'm crying, or criticize me if I'm laughing, I'm just cleaning out my heart to make it whole again.

    

Love from Japan

    Sometimes love comes in unexpected ways.  Sometimes love comes from far away places to you.  Sometimes love comes shown from across the ocean.  Sometimes love comes in the form of a young Japanese family, the mom being my 'sister' whom I had not seen since 1986, on her last brief visit after she left our home in 1979.  My little sister Reiko, my Japanese sister via a foreign exchange program.  Reiko came to us in 1978 to study here in America, somehow I believe God placed her in our home back then for that year, but in our hearts forever.  She was only 15 when she came, and to me, she has always been one of the bravest person's alive.  To come to a foreign country, and stay for almost a whole year at such a young age was amazing to me.  She never complained, she never showed that she was homesick, even if she was.  She was here to learn, to experience a different culture and language.

      Several weeks ago, I received an email from her that she and her three children wanted to come and visit for a few days.  I was thrilled, and so was the rest of my family.  Although she said, she'd stay at hotel and take a taxi, I insisted she stay with me and Kristi and I'd take her where ever she wants, as hailing a taxi in Bismarck in not like hailing a taxi in Tokyo.

      The last few days, has just been wonderful, meeting her children, Yoko, Elena (twins) and Jun.    We've been trying to pack as much into a day as possible to let the children experience as much of a North Dakota experience as possible.  We've toured the capital, had lunch on the 18th floor,  visited the gift shop, went to the Shaw farm, Jun got a ride on Grandpa Don's tractor, they threw snow balls and sticks out onto a frozen Harmon Lake, went to the YMCA and played basketball with Philip (who came home briefly to meet them on Wed night), ordered Pizza Hut pizza,  toured Mandan High School and the First Presbyterian Church, visited my Uncle Lewie and Auntie Elsie, went shopping at Kirkwood, and last night we (the whole Shaw family) ate at Kobe's Japanese Restaurant.  Today we'll go to a party at LaRue and Tracie's and tonight they will stay at a hotel to experience an American Hotel with big beds and pool. Of course doing all this while being extremely jet lagged and tired.   For the children, this is the first time, they've seen such wide open spaces as North Dakota has in abundance.  Unfortunately our North Dakota weather did not cooperate in presenting itself in a nice spring fashion, so they got to experience more of our North Dakota winter that seems to never end this year.

     But what really touched my heart, was something Reiko said yesterday while she was being interviewed by the Mandan News.  She was asked why she came back now at this time.  She said several factors, one the children were on 'spring break' which is actually the time in between school years, as their school year runs from April to March every year.  Next she was in between jobs, (She's a bond analysts in the banking world) and in a short break herself.  Then she said, "Kelley's husband, Todd, just died, and she wanted to come to see me, after such a sad event."  That's love in action to me.  To come from the other side of the globe, to say, I love you and care how you're doing after the loss of Todd.  That's wrapping big arms of love around me and my kids in ways I don't think Reiko even realizes  she was doing.  Thank you Reiko you're a very special person and I love you very much!

Mom being silly and finally getting the seaweed into her chopsticks, at Kobe's.  It actually tasted pretty good.

(I'm sorry I had to remove the rest of the pictures, as Reiko was uncomfortable with any pictures of her or her children on line.)

     

Three months of walking this road... Grief

      Todd's been gone for three months today.  But I know he's not really "gone" he just moved.  Moved to his permeant home in heaven.  But he's gone from my natural sight, and my natural world. He's never gone from my heart.  The following is something I wrote a couple nights ago, pondering grief and how it affects us.

    This morning I awoke, thinking of a dear friend, who lost her son a couple months ago, yesterday would have been his birthday.  I saw on FaceBook another friend with a heavy heart over a class mate that is no longer here.  At some point in your life you will be hit with grief.  Depending on how close you had a relationship with the one that has died, will decide how much that grief will affect you.   It has been said that  two people die every second of every day somewhere in the world.  At some point, in your life, one or two of those people will be in your realm of friends and family.  

    In a conversation with my son Tyson about a month ago, he said, "Mom, I thought grief was optional.  Like you could choose to grieve or not to grieve.  I've found out that's not so. You just grieve."   Loosing a Dad is a close relationship, it hits you hard.  

      I know someone out there is saying right now, "You're a believer, you shouldn't be grieving."  I don't grieve as someone who has no hope, I know where Todd is, but the Bible says you still grieve. If you were never meant to grieve why would God say He'd comfort you?

         I still have a human body, this flesh, my earth suit.  It hurts, and has feelings, and is physically affected by grief.  I thought no way would that happen to me.  Oh, silly me...  For several weeks after Todd moved to heaven, my physical heart would race, and my chest would feel so constricted, it felt like the beginning of a heart attack (or so I would imagine it may feel).  I would feel panic in crowds of people, like someone was pushing me into a box and closing off all my air.  I felt exhausted and tired, like I could never get enough sleep (having the flu and high fever right after Todd died was not helping me physically either).  I've thrown up more, for sometimes no particular reason, in the last three months, then ever in my life (except when I was pregnant, then I threw up constantly).  What is all this?  Grief.   Then there's the uncontrolled tears that come at strange times, like in the middle of Taekwondo Class, when I can't figure out what to do, total melt down.  There's times of confusion and muttled thinking and I feel like I'm watching myself, shaking my head wondering, what's wrong with me. I usually have things more together than this.  Grief.

    I read recently something by Elizabeth Elliot, that grief hit her in the grocery store once, and she sobbed uncontrollably for like 20 minutes standing there in the grocery aisle.  After reading that, I thought, I guess I'm ok, those tears will just come, even when we don't expect them.

     No one can walk the road for me, I have to walk through this myself.  I know there's those that are walking beside me.  My kids for sure.  Their grief, though very deep, is still a different grief than mine.  This was their Dad, for me, this was my husband.  Two very painful losses.  

     I guess what I've really learned in the past three months is, it's ok. It's ok to grieve, it's actually healthy, as long as I don't stay here forever, and I keep moving on.  My heart will always love, and always miss Todd, it can't be helped, he was a major part of my life.  Including our time of dating, it's been 33 years he was a part of my everyday thoughts, prayers and life.   How could his move not affect me? Every night his empty pillow is a constant reminder he's not here, his silent clothes still hanging in the closet never to be worn by him again.  (I still haven't been able to deal with removing them yet.)  I did get so far as to move his socks out of the dresser drawer, but when I started to put some of my things in his drawer, I broke down in sobs and decided I can't do that quite yet. May sound stupid I know, but it's a process.  The other thing I learned, is it takes way more time, than I ever dreamed it would.  Don't expect me, or anyone else with a great loss, to be back to 'normal' in a couple of months.  There is no more normal for me.  Everything is starting over.  That can be a good thing, but it isn't in anyway an easy thing.  Daily I'm staring down 'firsts' in my life.  Daily having to learn to do this as 'me' and not as 'we.'  And to be really frank, it's not very fun.  

     Todd and I had always dreamed of growing old together, we had plans of wanting our 75th anniversary announced on "Paul Harvey."  (yah, I know he's not alive anymore, but you know what I mean.)  It's hard now to look at couples that have been married a long time, and not feel a little hurt, cause I'll never have that now.  That's called grieving a loss, that was attached to the loss of my loved one.  There's the grief of knowing my precious little granddaughters will never know their Grandpa Todd.  Kadence has some memory of him now, but she's only two, eventually that will fade from her.  He'll never get to give them horse rides.  

    Grief, it changes you.  When I hear of someone else loosing a loved one, I know the feeling, the sorrow, the hurt.  I want to reach out and fix it for them, but I know I can't any more, than I can fix for myself.  You just keep walking through it.  Learning it's ok to keep living.  It's ok to laugh again.  It's ok to cry. It's ok to feel sad.  It's ok, to go on.  Going on with life, doesn't mean I've forgotten him, it means I love him all the more.  He can no longer come to me, but someday I will be reunited with him. 

    Grief, for me, has been digging in deeper knowing my Lord.  Worshiping with every fiber of my being, knowing in worship, I can touch the realm of heaven, or at least yearn to.   I want to join with the heavenly hosts, and that great crowd of witnesses who have gone on before me, in worship to the one true King.  I want to hear the angels  sing "Holy, holy, holy," as I sing it forth from my lips too. When your other half moves to heaven, heaven becomes so much more real.  Actually it's more real than earth. 

------

    People always seem to ask me how I'm doing.  I mostly answer, "I don't know, how am I suppose to be doing?" I guess that's answering a question with a question. For some, like the checker at Walmart, it's just a greeting.  For others, they are concerned and hope I'm ok.  It's an awkward question for me to answer, cause I don't know the answer.  If I go by emotions, that answer can change from minute to minute.  If I go by what God says, there's more stability to that answer, but not all of that is a total revelation yet in my life.  I have moments of sheer panic for my future, then I hear the Lord say to my heart, "I got you covered, it's gonna be ok."  I then have a choice, do I go with the panic, or do I trust the Lord, that He's got me covered, and has a plan for me?  Choices.  Life is full of them every day. What we choose often affects more than just my own life.  It affects everyone around me too.  Sometimes I make good choices, and sometimes, I blow it.  So do you.  We're human, living in this flesh, life is a battle, but we can have victory, but I think it only comes through Jesus.  

    I remember when I was a kid, in gym class, and they would choose up teams, I was always the last pick, and sometimes it was said, "I don't want her on my team."  Athletics has never been 'my thing.'  I knew just as much as all the other kids, those kids that were really good.  I wanted to be on their team, cause then there was a greater chance of winning, even if I wasn't very good. (I carried the name of "statue" all through grade school for my batting ability. I usually only made it to base if I got hit by the ball, and got to walk it.)  But even though I was terrible at athletics, I still wanted to win and be on the winning team.  Thank God, with Jesus, I'm on a winning team.  It may look like I'm loosing at this game of life, but I read the last chapter, and my team wins!  And the good thing about this team, the captain wanted me on His team!