The Lord says, "Those who hope in me will not be disappointed." ~Isaiah 49:23
As I started out my morning with God, I stumbled upon this verse and was so encouraged! The past week of my life has been full of some hard decisions. Yet, God has continued to amaze me how He knows my every need and does NOT disappoint when I put my trust and hope in Him!! Last Thursday was an especially hard day, and yet once again, God took care of my every need and even reminded me He cared about the things that I don't really "need". As I was out walking with a friend at the lake sharing about my current struggles, a woman (I barely know!) walked by and said, "Elizabeth Heyroth! I prayed for you today. In fact, you are on my prayer list and I have been praying for you every day!" Wow--That was almost like God Himself reminding me that He cares! THEN, later that night, a couple friends of mine brought me a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of flowers "just because". I was literally just thinking how I missed getting flowers. Rich would spoil me rotten with them often and I just hate to spend the money on them for myself, so once again, God provides! Flowers are not even something I necessarily "need", but it was just a way of God showing me that He WILL fill that void in my life. When I have days of feeling like I live in such a "couples world" and I am all alone and missing out on that sweet companionship I so desire, HE takes care of it...sometimes with just His own presence, but often with people right here with skin on them to show me their love. What an amazing God we serve! I find that when I let go of trying to control my life and fill my own desires, HE does it for me and so much better too!
Parenting is still a challenge, but would be regardless if Rich were here or not! Ha! I do, however, SO long for times where I could just get a second opinion or just have someone else step in to be the one to say NO. There really is some power and influence in being a man in a little boys' eyes as well. It is amazing how Ethan will just dissolve at even a stern look from my dad. I AM so thankful that Ethan has Godly men through my dad and my father-in-law that he can look up to as he grows. We are still working through the no daddy factor as we age. Explaining Easter brought tears to my eyes as he wanted to know if daddy could come back to life just like Jesus. I said, "No, Daddy is not God." He said, "Then, will Jesus come live with us?" :-) I told him he already did! He was happy to hear that, but not quite convinced.
As we go through new challenging moments in parenting, I try to remember the sweet times so I can continue to patiently discipline through the rough times. Ethan is entering a new stage of wanting to do the exact opposite of EVERYTHING I say. I say, "yes" He says. "NO!" I turn right when driving and he says, "I wanted to go THAT way (pointing left!)" I say he needs to listen to me and he says, "I am the adult, you listen to ME!" It can be exhausting, but as I sit down to write about it tonight, it just makes me smile. I am SO thankful I have him in my life...all of the challenges just make ME rely more on God and OH the times I have probably said the same things to Him. I pray He would grant me with the same patience He has for me.
There have also been some pretty sweet moments that I treasure and wish I could just put life on pause as I enjoy my "bi-polar" child. (Not really, but WOW, he sure can turn it off and on!) At bedtime, he turns into the sweetest thing you would ever imagine. As we talk about our day and the best and worst thing that happened, he is always full of positives! It is such a reminder for me to view life through the eyes of a child. He often struggles to think of anything that was difficult that day. We then use these things to pray to God. He LOVES to pray for others too and often will thank God for almost everyone he knows. :-) Tonight, we went to the lake to watch the sun set (It was SO beautiful!!--I LOVE where I live!). As the pink spread across the lake, we were talking about all of the things around us that God made. Tonight, he looked very carefully across the water and pointed and said in a very excited voice, "I think I see God!" It was the sweetest moment. We DID see God in everything that surrounded us. It was really a precious time! Other things that make me laugh and stand in awe of God are when I see Rich SO much in Ethan. His looks, his mannerisms, and even his sense of humor. A few days ago, I heard him giggling and I went to find him and he was kind of sliding/rolling down the stairs. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "I am pretend falling down the stairs, mommy! It is fun! Real falling is not, but THIS is!" I could not believe my ears...seriously?! He has amazing little ears and may have picked up on a conversation about his daddy falling down the stairs for a laugh, but I am not sure. I just stood there and thought, I wonder if he is going to start snorting Jello next?! ;-)
As I continue to move forward in life, I WILL hold onto hope as I trust God with my life and especially Ethan's life. I KNOW He has good plans for us and I am excited to watch our lives unfold before me. I feel like I am FINALLY getting my identity back. It was seriously like my life had just been ripped away and I was left standing there with a baby in tow wondering, "What do I do now, God?!" I was fortunate enough to have studied a lot on finding my significance in God before all of this happened, but this was a HUGE test in that area. As a woman AND a people pleaser, this has never been an easy thing for me to completely grasp. But, I am thankful that God has not and will NEVER give up on me! And on the days that I think I just can't bare this pain anymore, I remember that this life is really just the wink of an eye compared to eternity. So, I will press on!! God is making everything new!
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ~Phil. 3:12
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Where to Begin?!!
Honestly, there is NO way I can cover the ups and downs of the past 10 weeks of my life in one short blog entry. I went through Valentine's Day, the beginning of a new season (Spring), and what would have been Rich's 32nd birthday. A second year without him. There were SO many other events that took place during this time too, and to be perfectly honest, I have not handled them all the way I would have liked. Overall, I have learned that I MUST stay so close to Christ and the people He has placed in my life that are seeking after Him. I have learned that I am so vulnerable to the ways of this world and that it is so easy and tempting to use anything but Christ to fill the void in my life that can ONLY be filled with HIM. I know that my identity is not in my loss of Rich, and that Christ has so much more ahead of me in this life, but it has been a real struggle lately to know that in my heart and not just my head. If I am completely honest, I can say that I am tired of talking about it. I am tired of being asked to speak about it, share about it, etc, etc, etc. There is MORE to me than that. Yet, I also know that God is STILL using my story and Rich's death to touch and reach others and that it is really never going away and will always be a part of me. God used that man in my life to teach me SO much about HIS character. He used our marriage to teach me what it means to really experience unconditional love and the work that it takes to make a relationship not only work, but succeed! For that, I will be forever thankful!!
I recently read a letter from Rich that he wrote to me when he presented me with a new guitar for an anniversary present. It was such a good reminder to me that I need to continue to work on and tweak my relationship with Christ just as I did in marriage. It is SO easy to get lazy. I never thought I would get to the point where I could go a day without being in the Word...it had truly become my source of life. But, somehow, it slowly slipped away and I began to fill my time and energy with being a mom, work, planning a future, people, housework, talking on the phone, getting on Facebook...anything BUT what I needed to be doing...spending time with the 1st love of my life! Rich gave me this letter during a kind of rough patch in our marriage when we were dealing with some hard issues. We were definitely past the "honeymoon stage" and had entered into the "this is for life and I don't always like you stage". If you are married, you know what I mean! :-)
To my Precious Elizabeth Ann:
I have let you know a little bit, but never completely, something that really made me sad, a little more than I let on. The day our apartment was broken into and my guitar was taken, I was pretty upset. I felt very grateful and blessed that you were not there when it happened, and that nothing was taken that could not be easily replaced. They were just "things" and could all be replaced. However, I was a little upset, as I have said, that my guitar was taken. The guitar was obviously very special to me. The reason for that is because I worked with it for a long time, and did things to make it just right. It had a great sound and was fun to play...it was perfect for me, but only after a lot of work. If I hadn't played it constantly, worked with it, tuned, tweaked, and repaired it wouldn't have sounded the way I wanted it to. And it was always getting better...had it not gotten stolen, I would have still been working with it. Bear with me as I write this; I write it in hopes that you will understand something and feel better about it after when I finish my thoughts....
I got you this guitar- originally as a 2nd anniversary gift, but it seemed appropriate to give it to you now- because I thought it was sort of symbolic of my relationship with you. Believe me...I am not comparing you or us to a guitar, other than one thing. You've probably been faced with this one question before, as I CONSTANTLY am: "What is the one best thing about married life?" To me, that is an incredibly hard question to answer, because there are so many wonderful things about being married to you... I won't even go into it right now or the list would be too long. I have decided that the single best thing about being married to you, Elizabeth Ann Heyroth, is that it keeps getting better. I have always been deeply in love with you, and it has always been an honor and pleasure to by your boyfriend, your best friend, and your husband. But, it has NEVER ONCE stopped getting better. It is like the guitar, in a way. It was wonderful when I first got it, but I kept making it better by taking time with it, playing with it, and investing time and effort into it. I feel the same way about you; obviously there are times when you and I get frustrated with each other, but the wonderful thing about that is that no matter how frustrated or angry or hurt we get 1) We love each other and it will always be okay in the end and 2) the investment of time, work, feelings, and emotions will continue to make our marriage better. Obviously there are some things we need to work on and refine, but with prayer and just working at it, God will bring us closer to one another and to Him.
The guitar was pretty special to me, not because it was given to me by anyone special, or because I am a huge music fanatic, but because I could invest time and effort into it and make something beautiful with it (which is why I generally choose to worship with it...) But, YOU and our marriage are EXTREMELY precious to me....and partly for the very same reason. I have enjoyed nothing better than growing with you, and growing closer to you. I know that it is not easy sometimes, and sometimes it even sucks. :-) But, I also know that our relationship is growing better even in spite of (and due to) some of these hard times. Elizabeth, I have not stopped falling in love with you since the day I first did; I fall in love with you again and again, day after day. Our marriage and my wife are extremely beautiful to me; even when you are not happy, or we are upset with each other, I love you and I love being married to you. And I know that it will continue to get better and better.
Elizabeth, I don't know if any of that made any sense; I KNOW it didn't come close to letting you know how precious you are to me. But what I DO want is for this guitar to symbolize that our marriage is something beautiful, and wonderful, and that it will only get better with time and investment. May we both use our marriage and our guitars to glorify our Lord. I love you, Elizabeth; more than the day I met you, more than the day I married you.
I have included this letter in my blog for a couple of reasons....first of all as a reminder to ME that my relationship with Christ is much like marriage. It takes time and work, but it just keeps getting better and better and is worth all of the time and effort put into it. I SO want to reflect Christ with every part of my life and want to draw others closer to Him, but I realize this is only possible when I am in close communion with Him. I am learning that my relationship with Christ really has little to do with circumstances and everything to do with communing with Him. I want to take everything to Him and faithfully follow Him, no matter what difficulties come my way. I read something today that was good for me to hear, The goodness of God is available, but He does not force-feed you." So, time to get back to truly nurturing my relationship with Him!
Secondly, I so desperately desire for Ethan to grow into a Godly man that pursues Christ in every area of his life. I know I have a huge responsibility to model this for him with my own life. It is still a struggle of mine to know that he is growing up without an earthly father in his life. Rich was such a great example of what it means to love the Lord, people and how to truly love, honor, and respect a wife or any woman for that matter. I pray that God will continue to fill that void in Ethan's life as well. Hopefully he can read some of the things his father wrote to me and SEE and experience what an amazing legacy he has to follow.
Soooo...time to press on in this race of life...
"I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus!" ~Phil 3:13-14
I recently read a letter from Rich that he wrote to me when he presented me with a new guitar for an anniversary present. It was such a good reminder to me that I need to continue to work on and tweak my relationship with Christ just as I did in marriage. It is SO easy to get lazy. I never thought I would get to the point where I could go a day without being in the Word...it had truly become my source of life. But, somehow, it slowly slipped away and I began to fill my time and energy with being a mom, work, planning a future, people, housework, talking on the phone, getting on Facebook...anything BUT what I needed to be doing...spending time with the 1st love of my life! Rich gave me this letter during a kind of rough patch in our marriage when we were dealing with some hard issues. We were definitely past the "honeymoon stage" and had entered into the "this is for life and I don't always like you stage". If you are married, you know what I mean! :-)
To my Precious Elizabeth Ann:
I have let you know a little bit, but never completely, something that really made me sad, a little more than I let on. The day our apartment was broken into and my guitar was taken, I was pretty upset. I felt very grateful and blessed that you were not there when it happened, and that nothing was taken that could not be easily replaced. They were just "things" and could all be replaced. However, I was a little upset, as I have said, that my guitar was taken. The guitar was obviously very special to me. The reason for that is because I worked with it for a long time, and did things to make it just right. It had a great sound and was fun to play...it was perfect for me, but only after a lot of work. If I hadn't played it constantly, worked with it, tuned, tweaked, and repaired it wouldn't have sounded the way I wanted it to. And it was always getting better...had it not gotten stolen, I would have still been working with it. Bear with me as I write this; I write it in hopes that you will understand something and feel better about it after when I finish my thoughts....
I got you this guitar- originally as a 2nd anniversary gift, but it seemed appropriate to give it to you now- because I thought it was sort of symbolic of my relationship with you. Believe me...I am not comparing you or us to a guitar, other than one thing. You've probably been faced with this one question before, as I CONSTANTLY am: "What is the one best thing about married life?" To me, that is an incredibly hard question to answer, because there are so many wonderful things about being married to you... I won't even go into it right now or the list would be too long. I have decided that the single best thing about being married to you, Elizabeth Ann Heyroth, is that it keeps getting better. I have always been deeply in love with you, and it has always been an honor and pleasure to by your boyfriend, your best friend, and your husband. But, it has NEVER ONCE stopped getting better. It is like the guitar, in a way. It was wonderful when I first got it, but I kept making it better by taking time with it, playing with it, and investing time and effort into it. I feel the same way about you; obviously there are times when you and I get frustrated with each other, but the wonderful thing about that is that no matter how frustrated or angry or hurt we get 1) We love each other and it will always be okay in the end and 2) the investment of time, work, feelings, and emotions will continue to make our marriage better. Obviously there are some things we need to work on and refine, but with prayer and just working at it, God will bring us closer to one another and to Him.
The guitar was pretty special to me, not because it was given to me by anyone special, or because I am a huge music fanatic, but because I could invest time and effort into it and make something beautiful with it (which is why I generally choose to worship with it...) But, YOU and our marriage are EXTREMELY precious to me....and partly for the very same reason. I have enjoyed nothing better than growing with you, and growing closer to you. I know that it is not easy sometimes, and sometimes it even sucks. :-) But, I also know that our relationship is growing better even in spite of (and due to) some of these hard times. Elizabeth, I have not stopped falling in love with you since the day I first did; I fall in love with you again and again, day after day. Our marriage and my wife are extremely beautiful to me; even when you are not happy, or we are upset with each other, I love you and I love being married to you. And I know that it will continue to get better and better.
Elizabeth, I don't know if any of that made any sense; I KNOW it didn't come close to letting you know how precious you are to me. But what I DO want is for this guitar to symbolize that our marriage is something beautiful, and wonderful, and that it will only get better with time and investment. May we both use our marriage and our guitars to glorify our Lord. I love you, Elizabeth; more than the day I met you, more than the day I married you.
I have included this letter in my blog for a couple of reasons....first of all as a reminder to ME that my relationship with Christ is much like marriage. It takes time and work, but it just keeps getting better and better and is worth all of the time and effort put into it. I SO want to reflect Christ with every part of my life and want to draw others closer to Him, but I realize this is only possible when I am in close communion with Him. I am learning that my relationship with Christ really has little to do with circumstances and everything to do with communing with Him. I want to take everything to Him and faithfully follow Him, no matter what difficulties come my way. I read something today that was good for me to hear, The goodness of God is available, but He does not force-feed you." So, time to get back to truly nurturing my relationship with Him!
Secondly, I so desperately desire for Ethan to grow into a Godly man that pursues Christ in every area of his life. I know I have a huge responsibility to model this for him with my own life. It is still a struggle of mine to know that he is growing up without an earthly father in his life. Rich was such a great example of what it means to love the Lord, people and how to truly love, honor, and respect a wife or any woman for that matter. I pray that God will continue to fill that void in Ethan's life as well. Hopefully he can read some of the things his father wrote to me and SEE and experience what an amazing legacy he has to follow.
Soooo...time to press on in this race of life...
"I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus!" ~Phil 3:13-14
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