An uncertain future

It has been a while since I wrote on my blog.. I began this blog in March of 2010. So here I am 12 years later living a life I could never have imagined. If you have been following me, you know that my life turned upside down in 2019 when my husband was hospitalized for early onset dementia and he went to be with Jesus in August of 2020.. during the pandemic.. I moved, gave away everything and eventually ended up where I am living now. On March 30th of 2020 I moved here.. that was our 18th wedding anniversary.. if he were here we would be celebrating our 20th anniversary in a few weeks.

My life started over … living alone for the first time.. widowed for the second time and now facing a very uncertain future. How long will I be here? What lies ahead? Is there another season for me? I was only 51 when I was widowed for the first time and it was clear that I would have another season.. in many ways it was the best part of my life.. My daughter married, I married again and the grandchildren were born. Now I am much older and the grandkids are almost grown.. It is more difficult to imagine that there is more in store for me.. yet at the same time, I am here and I could live much longer. My mother just turned 100 in November.. good genes.

The biggest challenge is living in the uncertainty daily. What is God up to ? Will He help me to find a new path.. a new direction.. a new purpose? Well.. He knows me and He shaped me so I believe He will do all these things and more.. but the waiting is difficult. I have never been a patient person.. it is hard to live without knowing. .Yet there is one thing I do know and that is that He is faithful and will never change.. I lost my husband, my job, my things, and even my health has been challenged, but I cannot lose the Lord… the losses are hard, the grief continues , but He seems more real and closer to me than ever before. He is with me, He is for me, He follows me, and He leads me as I trust Him.

The Bible verses on fear have helped me so much during this time.. here is one of my favorites.

“Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

Do you face an uncertain future? Look to Him .. He will never fail you.

Grieving is waiting

This morning as I was reading from a book on waiting I realized that a grieving season is waiting. Maybe one of the toughest waiting seasons that life has to offer. If you have been following my blog you know that I am grieving the loss of my husband and the life we shared together. I struggle with the desire to move ahead .. I need to stay in this season until the Lord does His healing work in my heart.

Grieving tends to be misunderstood in our culture and that can make a season like this all the more challenging. Now that almost 11 months have passed since Steve went to be with the Lord, I know that there are those who say.. you need to move on and think about the good things the Lord has for you. First of all there is no such thing as moving on.. you never move on and leave behind the person you love.. You move ahead and take them with you.. their presence is what enables you to want to keep living.. it is as though they are cheering you on.. telling you to live your life fully..

Grief has no timetable.. none. Everyone who experiences a great loss needs to take as much time as it takes and no one can say anything about that. That does not mean that they are supposed to just keep grieving and not receive healing . Both of these things happen together. It requires a desire to grieve fully but not without hope that God has plans that He has not revealed.. I find this to be very difficult. There are days when a grief attack occurs and I am a total mess.. as though the loss occurred yesterday and there are days when I am very hopeful and believing that the Lord has an amazing plan for me.

All of this involves waiting. Waiting on the Lord and waiting for the Lord. The sadness makes it difficult to believe anything good can happen again and waiting for something that is totally invisible is very hard.. My season of grief a a transitional time and it is a time of preparation.. the problem is what I am transitioning to and what am I being prepared for? So I am waiting and trusting in the goodness of God.

For me, I fall back on His sovereignty.. believing with all my heart that He loves me and will carry me forward in His time. My heart is heavy with the loss but my spirit is remembering His faithfulness and choosing to believe the best.. even on very bad days.. Clinging to Him and calling on Him all the time… So have grace for those who are grieving, they are all around you and they need your understanding and patience. Nothing is worse for a griever than to feel as though their feelings are wrong and they are disappointing the people who care about them.

Our culture is saturated with people who are facing all types of loss and Covid created many more losses than anyone realizes.. I am praying to be one of the people who reaches out to the broken hearted and brings comfort…so that my own pain is not wasted. Remember when Jesus quoted from this passage in Isaiah? It is our mission in these times.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning

Dreaming God’s way..

It was hard finding a title for this post. Dreaming is very important in the kingdom of God. He gives us the capacity to dream and imagine. But dreaming our own dreams and letting God give us dreams.. these are two different things. The reason I am writing about this today is because the Lord is dealing with some big issues in me that have to do with dreaming. For most of my life, I have let dreams be a way of escaping pain and suffering. It started in childhood. I was very unhappy with my family and there were many reasons why. I am not going to go into it here, but I needed a way out.. so I dreamed of this perfect life.. a perfect family. One very different from my own.

Unfortunately the path I took to get that perfect life failed. I had relationships with men that were unhealthy and eventually ended up marrying an abusive addict.. but when he passed away.. the dream of a better life was still alive and I married Steve. He was a wonderful man and I had many of the things in my life that I thought were lost forever. If you have been following my blog, then you know that Steve also passed away.. last summer. I lost everything when he got sick and I no longer had that wonderful life that I cherished. It was not a perfect life and for most of our marriage we had financial problems .. there was no real stability.. so I filled my head with dreams of the day when I would get that last piece and live happily every after. Instead Steve became ill with dementia and things became more and more difficult.

Now that he is gone, I am alone and sure enough.. the old dreams came back.. dreaming of another chance to have that life that would be close to perfect.. funny how that could sneak in even at my age! This time, the Lord has stopped me from dreaming.. Now, that doesn’t mean that I won’t get another chance.. it just means that He is teaching me to be in the pain and suffering without trying to escape through dreaming. He is helping me to live in the present and be content with not knowing what the future holds. I believe that this is how He is teaching me to rely more deeply on Him. My old dreams are gone but He can give me new ones when it is time and more importantly He is enabling me to believe that everything He has prepared for me is going to be better than my dreams.. It is actually very freeing not to be dreaming and to realize that this season is teaching me so much about our Great God.

I have always loved this scripture.. but finally I feel as though I truly understand it

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires.

The Rabbit Hole

The title of this post is drawn from a picture that I saw in my head about grief. Of course it is related to Alice In Wonderland. After googling rabbit hole and grief I came across a movie made in 2010 called “Rabbit Hole”. I never saw the movie but I know it is about a couple who lose a child and the grief they experienced after the loss.. it sounds almost too sad for me right now.

The reason for rabbit hole is that after Alice fell down the hole, she was in a different world and that is the experience of grief. When you lose someone close to you, your world totally changes and it is surreal. People you know go about their business as though nothing has happened. I almost want to stop them and say ” don’t you realize everything is different now?”. Then I remember it is not for them.. only for me. I am in a world that I don’t recognize because my husband is with the Lord now. At the same time, the world itself turned upside down several times.. last March and actually yesterday was a day like none other.

Back to the world of grief.. I often wake up and wonder where I am.. I moved 3 times in just a little over a year and most of the things I looked at and used for 18 years are gone.. I have days when I wonder if I could find them all.. a strange thought since many of them are in Idaho and lots of things are here in different homes of friends and family and some went to strangers through the Goodwill store.. My world turned upside down three times and then Steve passed 4 months ago and my life disappeared.. the life where I spent every day for years looking out for him and taking care of him .

So I have fallen into the rabbit hole and I continually find myself wondering where I am.. It is easy during a grieving season like this to feel lost or crazy .. or just totally different from other people. All of these things are true.. except that I am not crazy.. I am grieving deeply and fully.. Trying to make sense of a world that makes no sense.. trying to feel at home.. when home to me was my husband.. anywhere he was.. that felt like home.

Covid could be making your feel like you fell down that same hole. Maybe you are grieving things that are no longer possible.. For some of us, yesterday was a trigger too.. what happened to the country we grew up in? Is everything out of control? A very challenging time to be alive.. in so many ways. So.. you are not crazy if you feel scared or depressed or disoriented right now.. You are just a human trying to cope with a very broken world where loss is a big part of life.. You will land on your feel and so will I. Our God will come for us in the middle of the mess and rescue us from the heartbreak we may be feeling now. He is for us and with us.

He has prepared a place for us… better than our wildest dreams.

“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Grieving and living

It has been five weeks since Steve went to be with the Lord and I miss him every single day. Part of me wants him back but another part knows that he is better off where he is and I need to try to begin again. It is very difficult. there are constant reminders of our life together and the continuing empty places I stumble across that can only be filled with his presence.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.. I have so much time alone that I can’t run from my thoughts and feelings.. a mixed blessing.. How do I grieve and still live? A big question when you lose your spouse, best friend and your biggest fan. I don’t know the answer since I am learning how to do this every single day.

There are very sad moments and lonely days. There are difficult nights and early mornings that seem endless. My mind entertains way too many thoughts about the future.. everyone tells me to stay in the present.. that is very hard when the present is so far from what I wish it was.. yet I see the wisdom in that advice.. I also know I need to believe that the future is going to be better than the present..

I had a conversation with someone who seemed to want to convince me that a better future might never come.. that some things never change.. that we need to be prepared to accept the present even if we are unhappy and longing for something more. That conversation was very hard.. it seemed to undermine everything I believe about God.

The God I know is always doing a new thing. He is a God filled with love for His children. He puts desires in our hearts because He wants us to ask for things and then believe that He will come through and answer us. He is the redeemer. He takes what is meant for evil and turns it into something good. His ways are not our ways. He is always for us.. ahead of us, preparing the way for us. This is the God of Romans 8:28.. He takes all things and uses them for good in our lives.. ALL THINGs.. He will do much more than we could ever ask or imagine and we will see His goodness in the land of the living.

He rescues us.. searches for us.. pursues us. His heart is for us and His plans for us are for our good and He will never harm us. My life is proof of this. God is not in a box that we create.. He has more for us than living in our own small sad stories.. There is a larger story and He is the hero of that story.. coming to save and restore us over and over again.

So.. yes I am grieving and sad and lonely.. but God is with me and for me and will surprise me with things that I can’t even dream about right now. He has collected all my tears and He weeps with me.. I trust Him fully and will continue to believe that He is in this season with me and that He will deliver me when it is time.

I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.  Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

( Ephesians 3: 16-20)

Shelter in Place

 

 

I actually cannot remember using that phrase before about 4 months ago. There was never a time when I thought for even one minute we would be using it every day and doing it for months. So here we are and we have been sheltering for 4 months.. limiting our contact with other people by staying home and when we go out we wear masks and stay 6 feet apart as much as possible.

The world has turned upside down and may stay that way for a long time.. no one can say that we will ever return to what we called normal. It is going to take time to see what this virus does next and what the reaction to this virus has done to us. I don’t know about you but what I miss the most is hugs and smiles.. Two very important ways we connect with one another have been taken away.. it is a huge loss for me. Thankfully I have a few people in my family I can hug and we can be around one another without masks and smile at each other.. but I miss smiling at strangers and hugging people that I don’t see very often.. expressing the joy that the Lord gives us for one another .

So I long for the good old days when we were not afraid of each other.. when we did not see continual bad news about this virus every single day for months.. I continue to hope for a time when we can relax more and enjoy life in a way that is not possible now.

I wonder how God is at work in this mess. Did He create this virus? I don’t believe He did because it is evil and He is not the creator of evil.. but yes, He has allowed it to exist and chosen not to stop it from spreading.. something that happens in this fallen world on a regular basis.. One thing I know is that He will bring good out of this because His word promises this. Sometimes I get glimpses of good things that are happening right now.. families are spending more time together.. people seem to be more polite and aware of each other out in public.. parents are getting to know their children in deeper ways. We are all learning to entertain ourselves in new ways because things we used to do are gone. Many people are exercising and cooking more.. focusing on being healthy in new ways. Some people are able to work from home and will never have to commute again.. taking stress out of their lives and we end up with cleaner air. Some parents will continue to home school their children because they find that everyone benefits from being together instead of spending long hours in the classroom.

Probably the biggest gain I see is that we are all less busy. We have more time to be alone and more time to connect with the Lord.. I realize that not everyone is taking advantage of this .. they may decide to continue to have busy lives by being on Zoom  and the phone as much as possible..That is too bad.. because my deepest feeling is that the Lord wants time with each one of us.. it may be even more important than going to church or spending time with friends. He longs for us to come to Him with all our broken dreams.. disappointments.. losses and sadness so He can apply the balm of Gilead on these wounds. It is our choice .. He will never force us to seek Him out.. As for me, I can only continue to live by letting him carry me as I stumble and fall under the weight of my situation. He is my everything.. my sorrow and grief are too heavy to bear by myself and you are probably experiencing some of that yourself. He is with us and for us and wants us to come as His weary and broken people so He can shelter us from this storm.

God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.

 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God..

(from Psalm 46)
   

 

 

 

Pastoral Counseling

 

As many of you know I have been working with women for the last 14 years as a Pastoral Counselor. I took the last two years off to take care of my husband who is currently in skilled nursing where he is getting very good care.

As this broken world continues to spiral downward.. many of us are hurting and really could use some help. I have decided to return to the work I love and I am praying that the Lord will send me people to help as He has always done in the past. My own situation continues to be challenging but in the midst of it.. I need to pour out to others so that the Lord can use me as a wounded healer. I decided to post this in case anyone reading it needs to talk through whatever struggle they are having. I am posting this here and on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/aliciasroses/) You can message me on Facebook if you want to connect. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. Pastoral Counseling is not therapy and it is not Spiritual Direction.. it may have components of both but it is truly counseling by the power of the Holy Spirit as He brings healing to the brokenhearted.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
   and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise 
instead of a spirit of despair. ( Isaiah 61)

 

Almost 18 Years

Next Monday is March 30th.. it is our 18th anniversary. I probably will not get in to the skilled nursing facility because of the ” shelter in place” rule.  It is sad but when I finally get to see Steve again I just know it will be a celebration. Since hospice became  involved in our lives.. things are better than they were. Steve is holding his own and in some ways improved because of the extra layer of help. I am doing better because I have other people who are monitoring his situation and will step in if he needs it. I actually did not realize that hospice can extend the life of people because they provide comfort care and extra attention which enables the patient to feel more love and less stress.

As I have been sheltering.. I feel like I am seeing new things in our situation. God’s timing has been miraculous. 7 months ago there was a big change that forced me into the situation where I had to put Steve in the hospital and then the skilled nursing. Just last month hospice became a part of our journey. The Lord knew what we would need at this stage. He knew this pandemic was coming and exactly when and where it would hit. He know that Steve was vulnerable and that I would not be able to visit him every day .. so last month he enabled hospice to come in and do the things I was doing.. He also knew that I would eventually need to find a place by myself.

I stayed with my daughter and family for 3 months and with old friends for 3 months..the second place is only 5 minutes from Steve’s . Now that he is being watched and cared for by hospice.. the Lord has provided a new place.. my own small place back in my hometown.. close to my daughter and only a few freeway exits away from Steve.. it seems to be just what I need.. and want. So here I am having plenty of time to sort through things and prepare for this move since I can’t really go anywhere.. sounds like God’s plan for sure.

So on our 18th anniversary I will be moving into my new place and hopefully, God willing, it will not be too long before I can visit my husband again.. God is directing our steps and taking care of both of us separately just as He did when we were together.. I am so very grateful.

I hope you are surviving this season without feeling too isolated or lonely and that you are having the time to see God at work in your circumstances.. God is still God.. He is still in control and you can still trust Him. He is Good .. so very Good!

I am reminded of this story in Matthew.. this is from the Message:

The Wind Ran Out of Breath

 Late that day he said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along. A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?”

 Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass. Jesus reprimanded the disciples: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?”

They were in absolute awe, staggered. “Who is this, anyway?” they asked. “Wind and sea at his beck and call!”

Let’s decide to be in absolute awe of Him as we sail through the storm that is upon us..Our great God!

Emmanuel

I wonder if anyone will be reading this today.. it is such a busy time of the year.. Maybe I am writing this just for me and that’s OK too. This has been a long year for me and the most difficult year of my life.. the end is in sight and sometime in the first week in January I will be moving again.. I moved three months ago and that was very traumatic.. I pray everyday that the Lord will help me make another transition and that His Grace will sustain me.

Life is so unpredictable.. the future is so unclear and that is really for everyone not just me. We never know what will happen next to turn our lives inside out or upside down.. life is so fragile but we try not to think about that. It is so easy to get comfortable and to forget that this life can change in a moment. I am not writing this to upset anyone.. after all it is Christmas Eve and isn’t it a time to celebrate? For some of us that is exactly what will be happening but for others.. including myself, it is a lonely night and a sad night because people we love are missing from our lives and no one can take their place. I am going to visit my husband in skilled nursing today and he will not understand that it is Christmas Eve or that I am lonely because we no longer live together and he is ill. Maybe that is for the best.. but he will be very glad to see me as he is every day and he will tell me that he loves me as he does every time.. even though he has lost much of his ability to remember and to speak clearly he still has his whole heart and the spirit of God is still working through him.. I am so grateful.

I feel very vulnerable sharing this with you.. but somehow my blog seems like the place to express the real things in my life.. something I probably need to do right now. So this is a hard day for me.. a hard season.. a hard year. Next week I will have another birthday and remember that 18 years ago on my birthday my husband asked me to marry him. He is still the love of my life and will always be.. I am thankful for all these years.. even the  current ones that have been so challenging. I have learned to treasure the moments because I don’t know how many more I will have.. I have discovered that this life is fleeting and we never know when it will end or when someone we love might get sick or die.. It is out of our hands..

Probably the biggest gift of this season is the way I able to see the Lord caring for me and guiding my steps as I stumble along. He makes himself known in many different ways each day. He works through His people to encourage and love me.. He is truly Emmanuel.. GOD WITH US! It is not just a name… it is who He is..

I need him every minute of every day just to continue to have hope and to believe that He will bring good out of this tragedy.. there is no other way to survive. So the name Emmanuel has become real to me this year and I am thankful.

My prayer for you is that you encounter the Lord in this season.. that the things of this world will disappear as you come close to Him.. in your brokenness.. in your grief and sadness.. Christmas is a time to be real with Him to allow Him to become more real to you.. We live in dark times and there are so many things that steal our joy and hope in this dark world.. We need Him more than ever.. He is our sanctuary, our peace and our hope.

love,

Alicia

Joy to the World!

 

“Joy is an act of resistance against despair and its forces”

The first two weeks of advent .. Hope and Peace lead us to the present week Joy.. we are no longer hoping and seeking peace instead we are ready to embrace joy.. to celebrate the joy of the Lord. Jesus was born into a dark and lonely world .. a world that needed Him more than it realized. The little baby born in the manager brought something amazing to us.. The joy of the Lord.. This joy is our stronghold in times of trouble .. it is our refuge when we are drowning in a sea of sorrow.. it is our hiding place and our sanctuary. Joy is available to us because of His unending love and His generous heart..We are His and because of that we can rejoice in our trials and suffering.. knowing that He is for us and with us.

We are in a season of anticipation.. of waiting.. as we draw near to that day when we celebrate the birth of Christ. He came into the world as a tiny helpless baby and yet He was God. He came to set the captives free.. to release the world from the bondage of sin and death. As He was born, the air was full of Joy.. the world began to breathe again.. Finally!

We can rest.. it is finished. The joy that flooded the world on that day is remembered every year at Christmas time. We hear the songs on the radio and in stores.. “Joy to the World” Even those who do not understand the depth of these words.. feel the joy and celebrate His birth. His spirit remains here with us.. to guide us and direct our steps. He fills us and walks with us as we trust Him. Christmas is an opportunity to remember this.. to be reminded of His faithfulness and His presence in our lives. He is our hope, our peace and our Joy..

 

^” I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”     ( John 15:11)