In Sickness or In Health

” I, Lauren, take you, Matt, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.”

What. A. Week. What a few weeks.

“God will never give you more than you can handle.” – FALSE. God will often give you more than you can handle! He WANTS us to lean on Him, to trust in Him, and to lean not on our own understanding. And it is only through Him that Matt and I have gotten through this past week. Well, through this past month.

I’m sitting at home writing this blog, watching my husband nap on and off. Two weeks in the hospital. Two weeks of my life that I worried without ending and prayed without ceasing. Two weeks that we didn’t get to be home with our children. Two weeks where Matt was so much sicker than we ever could have imagined. I’ve never been through anything so exhausting – mentally, physically and emotionally.

Yet, I am so thankful.

I feel like everything Matt and I have gone through over these last several months, has led us here. God has been preparing us emotionally and spiritually for months. Matt got so sick, so fast. And from such a simple injury! Life threw us a curve ball that we weren’t expecting, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few months it’s to just go with the flow. It’s been so hard these past few weeks to see my husband in so much pain, and to not be able to fix it. It was especially hard seeing him laid up in the hospital, and knowing there was nothing I could do to make it go away.

Except pray.

God is so good. I have prayed, and cried out to Him, and prayed some more. I know I wouldn’t have been able to hold up this long without Him walking every step with us. He has put so many people in place throughout this, it’s truly amazing to step back and watch Him work. We’ve formed lasting relationships with so many in the hospital since we’ve been here – it really is like a big, crazy family now!

I can’t help but think back over the past few months, and how God has been showing out in our lives. The day we said our vows to each other, and became husband and wife was one of the best days of my life. I feel like our wedding vows have really been put through the ringer the last several months. “For better or for worse” – check. “For richer or for poorer” – also check. And now, “in sickness and in health”. Standing with Matt through his sickness, and being able to serve him as his wife while he has been down – that’s been one of the greatest honors of my life. I remember joking with him after we had Mae Harper – I had a c-section and those of you that have had one know the recovery isn’t pretty. He had to do stuff for me that I would have rather never had to ask. But he did it so graciously, and lovingly; he went above and beyond taking care of me, and loving me through my recovery. And now I get to pay it forward with him. It’s been hard on him being so dependent on me, and not being able to do so much for himself. But we’re a team – we’re one person, and we’ll get through this together. God knew this was coming and has been preparing us for a while now.

Matt’s had so many praying for him and checking on him. I can never say thank you enough to everyone for that. Those of you that prayed with us, and visited and called. We couldn’t make it without y’all, and we are so thankful for everyone in our lives. I had to put the blog on hold, for longer than I preferred, to take care of Matt and make sure our kids were taken care of. But now we’re back home and getting back in the swing of things. Matt will be on IV antibiotics for another 6-8 weeks, so he’s still got a long road to go in his recovery.

We’ve both had a lot of time to think over the past few weeks. And if anything, I love and appreciate my husband even more now. I’m so thankful to God for giving us a second chance. I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to be with Matt through every step of his illness. We are incredibly blessed to have our family together during this. We’ve both said time and again, how different this could have gone if we hadn’t stepped back and been obedient to God like He was calling us to do. We’ve walked hand in hand with Him through such a trying time in our marriage, and we’ve come out stronger than ever. In our love for Him, and our love for each other. I can’t imagine doing life without Matt by my side. And now I don’t have to. God brought us through the affair and made us stronger, and now He’s bringing us through this injury and illness of Matt’s. And we’re only getting stronger. We both have had to dig deep and find strength we didn’t know we had. But God.

I came across two verses in a bible study while we were in the hospital, and have clung to them like the lifeline that they are.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Bro. Tim preached Sunday night on grace – “When grace goes deep.” God’s grace is unending, and if we only seek Him we will find it. And Bro. Terry made mention of it in one his sermons recently – “Grace is not grace unless it’s undeserved.” WOW. That’s something we all should think about. There is nothing about us that deserves God’s grace, yet he so freely shows it to us if we only seek and follow Him. And His grace is sufficient! Without grace, we would be lost and alone. Without grace, we would have no hope. And I for one am so thankful for His grace. It’s given me another chance with my husband, a way to keep our family together. Because of grace, God’s great grace, I get to experience restoration daily. And I will give Him praises all of my days for all of the grace He has shown me. And in turn, allowed me to show grace to others. Grace makes us strong.

We have so much to be thankful for. And as Matt grows stronger from being so sick, we also get the chance to grow stronger together. God is good all the time!