TBT April 2007

Read Part 1 to see where this story starts!

Young and newly married. We were supposed to be planning for a bright and cheerful future.

Reality is often not what we dream of.

We spend over 60 nights in the hospital in our first year of marriage. We enjoyed life and each other, in the midst of the chemo, nausea, fears of the future and hospital stays.

Then that hot July day... we had a Dr appointment, things were bad. We had already planned to go the alternative route because  we assumed traditional medicine had nothing more to offer us. The Dr, a specialist at the University of Penn, looked me in the eye and said "If you take your husband for alternative care, you will kill him. Once you realize what you are planning to do, doesn't work come back to me." I cried. In the Dr's office. Because he couldn't do more then offer chemo for the rest of a very short life. I couldn't accept that.

Then we joined the "in laws" at a ball game. I wanted to puke. I wanted to scream. I wanted to do anything but sit in that HOT ball field watching a stupid Phillies game. It is a moment forever frozen in my mind.

We ended up in Mexico for alternative treatment. Something we never regretted. God knew I needed that place. We had 9 more beautiful months together. There was horror and pain unlike anything one can imagine. There was peace that when fought for, filled us daily. The reality of God's sovereignty.


April 2007, I said Good Bye. 2 years and ten days after our wedding day,  my nightmare was now my reality. My very worst fears now my life. God is good. He gives and He takes away. Life isn't fair. The journey is hard. The journey is painful. But God's peace and grace ever so sweet. The tears were rivers of  pain and then healing rain...A broken heart healed into a beautiful masterpiece done by the Artist, who died for me.

check back next Thursday for the redemption part of this story, the beauty from the ashes...