‘Bout to Get Uncomfortable

When my husband and I first began our relationship and marriage, we talked every now and then about God. We were both believers, but I never felt as if his faith was very strong. He said all the right things, but I wasn’t completely convinced.

I can certainly identify with wavering faith. There have been times in my life when I wasn’t sure God existed, and if He did, why wasn’t he doing the things I was praying for him to do?

Sarah Ban Breathnach says in her book, Simple Abundance, “Want to make God laugh? Tell Him YOUR plans.”

I don’t remember when or what happened for me to decide that God was real. I do know that ever since my husband’s Ascending Aortic Aneurysm, neither of us questions much anymore, including each other’s faith.

Once he made it through that initial surgery, which you can read about here, we were so excited that he’d be going home in just a few days. Then we realized that his insides hadn’t woken up with the rest of him, and it became almost four more weeks of an extended hospital stay while the medical staff worked to figure out what was wrong.

It was great news that he got to move out of the ICU and into the cardiac care rooms. But things happened there that almost had me convinced he wouldn’t be coming home ever.

He developed a cough that he couldn’t shake. As a patient who had recently been split open eight inches down his chest, he was given a pillow that volunteers made specifically for heart patients to hug when they cough. He used it frequently.

One day, as I was sitting in his room visiting with him, he began to cough. He squeezed the little pillow to his chest and coughed and coughed until he passed out! Then his body began shaking like he was having a seizure. I quickly ran into the hall and hollered for a nurse, who just sat there looking at me. I yelled, “He’s having a seizure!” She quickly followed me to his room, and his body was already shaking less than before.

This happened frequently enough that the staff began keeping closer tabs on him. But the coughing just got worse.

I remember so many of my conversations with God at that time, where I was absolutely incredulous that He would bring him through his Triple A, only for him to die because of a cough.

​Time to come clean

I don’t think I had admitted to anyone yet that I was beginning to think he’d never come home when our oldest daughter called me. I was driving home from visiting him, and she told me that her brother had been talking to his dad on the phone when he started coughing, saying things that didn’t make sense, and then it sounded like he had dropped the phone.

I started crying, which caused her to cry, and I admitted that I didn’t think he was going to make it through this cough, combined with whatever was going on with his insides not waking up. We agreed to pray and pray.

Eventually, his cough got better, thankfully. But not before it had gotten much worse.

​The important part

He told me about a time when I hadn’t been at the hospital, and he must’ve started to cough and passed out. He said he felt his body rising up off the bed, and everything around him was blindingly white. Then it was like the sky started to clear, and it was a beautiful blue.

He turned and looked down, and realizing how high up he was, he started flailing his arms around, but felt God - and he instinctively knew it was God - pinning his arms to his sides to keep him from struggling. He calmed and was gently lowered back down to the bed. He also knew that his body was being worked on while he was experiencing this. After this experience, his cough got better.

Later, he came home and one day saw our minister eating lunch in the city park. He joined him, and at one point, he admitted what had happened because of his cough. Our minister asked if he would be willing to give his testimony during a church service, but my husband told him he didn’t think he would be comfortable doing that.

A few weeks after that conversation, he began waking up at the same time each night. Every single time he woke up, he was thinking about the offer to tell his story in church.

He finally admitted to me that he didn’t think God was going to let him sleep through the night again until he agreed to speak and talk about his experience.

As scared as he was to get up in front of a packed house during our church service, he knew he had to do it. It was amazing, and he had so many people come to him with their own stories because of it.

​Moral of the story is…

I no longer question his faith.

My own faith has grown a thousand times stronger since living through all of this, and especially while following my authentic journey. People have questioned my sanity. How could I possibly leave a steady job with a decent income as a teacher to follow some crazy dream of being a writer?

I have a great daily devotional book called A Little Me Time with God, and a recent prayer I read really hit home:

Good God, I trust you to guide me into your goodness, even though I don’t know how things will turn out. Settle my heart with your peace and help me to take each step you reveal to me.  

I personally believe following your authentic voice is probably going to mean that you lessen your grip on control and allow your faith in God to grow, as you learn to trust that He knows how to get you to the point in life where you’re supposed to be.