Thoughts from Elisabeth Elliot – Part One

I was looking back today at some quotes I jotted down when I was reading Elisabeth Elliot’s book, The Path of Loneliness. I want to share a few, along with some of my thoughts.

"How blessed I have been to have been a wife."

My thoughts exactly. To have had all the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of 41 1/2 years of marriage is something for which I am ever grateful. To have grown up in the LORD with a man who cared for my spiritual welfare is something that is a true blessing.

The reality was beginning to sink in: despite friends and family who cared about me, I was essentially alone for the first time in my life."

This is so true for me, also. I went from being at home (two years in a dorm didn’t count as alone) to marriage. Until Chuck died, I’d never lived alone.

Where is my home ultimately? My home is where Christ is...God has made a home for me in order for me to share that home with others. "

God has given me a home in Tampa, Florida. A home I have been able to share with others, whether for a meal or a few nights. What most of those who enter my house don’t know is what a blessing it is to to have them there.

My larger family are those who also know Christ in an intimate way."

God has provided me with a larger family at Holy Trinity Presbyterian Church. I have sisters there. I have pastors and elders who truly care for me: they shepherd my soul, they check on me, they pray for me. I have a place to serve.

The loneliness of widowhood was an exit from the comforts and consolations of having a husband, and an entrance into the strange world of having to make unilateral decisions again and to learn to say 'I'instead of 'we'."

Those unilateral decisions have about been my undoing this past week. I long for someone else to make some decisions for me. Someone to just say, “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

A lot of of packin’

 

A lot of movin’, A lot of rollin’
A lot of drivin’, A lot of strollin’
A lot of leavin’ here
A lot of arrivin’ there
Trying to go just about everywhere
A lot of thinking about where I’m going next

I could add a whole verse here about a lot of packin’ :

A lot of packin’, A lot of sortin’

It’s nerve rackin’, We’re transportin’

A lot of leavin’ there

A lot of arrivin’ here

Goin’ on a lot of love and prayers

A lot of thinking about where we’re goin’ next

 

I’ve wanted to write a post for a while but have been so overwhelmed by life. To try to make a long story short, I’ll share my husband’s facebook post.

From my husband…

As some of you are aware, I put in for retirement effective June 1 and we placed our home on the market. The house went under contract immediately and we close on 5/19/20.

Unfortunately a few weeks ago I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. We have consulted with UAB oncologists and decided to return to Jax, FL as planned and I have an appointment at Mayo Clinic this Thursday.

I wish all of you the very best in all life as to offer. Angie and I covet your prayers for strength, wisdom and that the Lord be glorified in our circumstances.

According to the Scripture all ‘our days are numbered’ so whether mine are few or many “I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for my sins…”

Please forgive me if I ever offended you in anyway, it is never intentional but still there is no excuse.

I pray his blessings upon each of you.

 

So, here we are in Jacksonville. We are home. One more night in a hotel and we move into an apartment for six months.  This is not the move we planned. We were going to buy a house -our last home -in Jacksonville with cash so we would have no mortgage payment going into retirement. God had others plans. And He has provided for us.

My husband will start chemo next week. Our lives will be much different. But I look forward to a sweet time.

There have been many silver linings in all of this. I have seen God’s providence. Had there not been this “pandemic” our two daughters would not have been free to come help us as they have. We have seen amazing things with these two girls. Young women. Their love and care for their dad and me has been overwhelming. From cooking, packing, and making phone calls for me to massaging feet, taking vitals and tracking meds and food for their dad, they have been here for us. I could never have done it without them.

Our sons, too, have poured out love and help on us. Our oldest with his nursing skills has been a comfort to lean on, traveling back and forth from Tampa, which is NOT a hop, skip, and jump away.   The younger son, thankfully working a new job, maintains constant contact and cheers us up. A few weekends ago they were all at our house in Bham. It was the first time we had all been together in over 13 years.

Silver linings and blessings from God.

 

 

There’s Hope For Sure

Red Mountain Park 2/22/20

 

In the middle of a very rainy winter, when it seems like spring will never come, I welcome the sunshine. I head to Red Mountain Park and am never disappointed. There, amidst the lifeless flora, I can always find some green. Sometimes a flower, even though considered a weed, peeps out below my feet to remind me that spring will come.

I find the abandoned railroad tracks where trees have grown up in the middle.

When my mind is burdened with thoughts and decisions that need to be made, I can find a calm. Though I return home with those decisions still unmade, the burden seems less. I not only have the assurance of spring, but the assurance that my future is in God’s hands, just like spring.

See, you can only live one day at a time
Only drive one hot rod at a time
Only say one word at a time
And only think one thought at a time
And every soul is alone when the day becomes night
And there in the dark if you can try to see the light
In the most pitch black shape of the loneliest shadow
Well then you ought to sleep well
‘Cause there’s hope for sure

High Steppin’/The Avett Brothers

 

 

Monday Music #20

I discovered a song last week called Walk and Don’t Walk by Guy Clark. Take a listen.

“I’m sittin’ here on the corner of walk and don’t walk”

 

 

I then discovered a similar song made popular by Rhonda Vincent. Both have sentiments that are quite alike.

 

“I’m at the corner of walk and don’t walk and I can’t make up my mind”