THE LONELY ROAD

"...they shall mount up with wings as eagles..." Isaiah 40:31

      Thinking back to the time just after R.J. went Home to be with the Lord, I struggled with so many problems.  Selling our home we'd lived in for twenty-four years was necessary.  A big house on two acres was more than I could handle.  Besides, I didn't want to live there without R.J..

      Then moving to a senior park where I could no longer see the mountains, just rows of mobile homes with gravel yards, was depressing.  I was having a very difficult time adjusting to being alone.  I felt lost and abandoned, just like when I was a little girl at the orphanage.

      The years as caregiver during R.J.'s long illness were very stressful.  My body was run down and a few months after his death I caught pneumonia, ending up in the hospital several days after Thanksgiving.  After three days in the hospital I was shipped off to a care center In Hemet, twenty-five miles away.

      I could not see how anyone could get well in this place with eerie sounds of patients yelling for help all hours of the day and night.  What really frightened me came about the second day when a woman came into my room with a clipboard and asked, "What is your preference in mortuaries?"

      Oh my God, I thought, they do not expect me to leave here alive!  I've got to get out of here!  Since there was no phone in my room, I prayed, "Oh God, please send somebody to visit me so they can call my son John to come and get me out of here."  God answered my prayer.  The third day two friends, Debbie and Penny came to visit me.  I pleaded "Debbie, will you call John and tell him to please come and get me out of this place?  I can't stay here another day.  The doctor here is going to run all new tests and they are not letting me out in three days as my doctor had instructed them.  I do not trust them, not since the lady asked me 'what is your preference in mortuaries.'

      Debbie returned from the pay-phone and said, "John will be over as soon as he gets home from work."  I said, "You know what John said about this place when I was admitted?  He said it reminded him of a haunted house.  All that was missing were the Halloween costumes."  Penny assured me, "Don't you worry.  You'll be out of here soon.  Debbie and I will pray for you before we leave."

      John came after work and told the lady at the desk, "I'm checking my mother out of here now."  The lady said, "You will have to sign this release form stating that you are taking full responsibility for your mother.  Your mother is on oxygen, so you will have to rent a portable tank.  I will call the rental store for you."  After she repeatedly said the line was busy, John decided she was stalling.  "I passed the store on my way here.  I'll drive over and get a tank before it closes."  When he returned he said to me, "The store clerk said no one had called them in the last few hours.  They're trying to keep you here."

      John brought a wheel chair and attached the portable oxygen tank.  As I sat in that chair anticipating my freedom I said, "Thank you, John, for rescuing me.  Thank You, God, for answering my prayer."

      This experience left me with a very low opinion of HMOs (Managed health care organizations).  Since I was too weak to care for myself I stayed with John and his wife Dina and my two grandsons, Eric and Tyler, for several months.  I am so grateful for their loving care.  The doctors had given me too many antibiotics and my immune system broke down.  I thought I would never be well again.

      I became discouraged and begged God to take me home.  I recalled what R.J. had said a few months before he died, "I want to die first so I won't be left alone...it would be too hard."  I got so angry at him I protested aloud, "He is up there dancing on streets of gold and I am down here hassling with all these problems alone.  God, it isn't fair."

      I had lost the heart to go on, sinking deeper into despair.  I grumbled at God day after day.  My begging Him to please take me Home was to no avail.  God sent people to pray for me.  Others He sent to say He had more things for me to do before I could go to heaven.  I didn't want to hear those words.  I just wanted to die.  Talk about a pitty-party, I was enveloped in one.

      About six weeks into my pity-party an extraordinary thing came about to change my thinking.  John and Dina picked up the mail from my place in Murrieta once a week.  Early in January they brought a great bundle of letters, bills, and magazines and put them on the bed beside me.

      As I picked up the current issue of Charisma Magazine an article about pain by Jack Taylor was mentioned on the cover.  It caught my eye.  Thinking to myself, I had better read that, it was placed in the priority pile of reading material.  After sorting the mail I began reading the article in Charisma.

      Jack told of having a heart attack in a city far from home.  His recovery was complicated by a serious staph infection near his heart, which almost brought about his death.  While he was hovering between life and death his wife had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized on another floor of the hospital.  Then he received word that the church back home where he is the pastor, was falling apart.

      As he lay in the hospital day after day without hope he decided to do a study on pain, thinking maybe he would understand what was happening to his life.  At the end of this study Jack came to the conclusion that God had a purpose for all his suffering.   It caused him to draw closer to God.  He had to rely on the Lord for everything.  He learned to praise God in spite of the chaos surrounding him.  Jack emerged from his ordeal with renewed strength and trust in God.

      His story reminded me of Habakkuk, one of the minor prophets in the Bible, who complained to God about the destruction and violence around him.   Nevertheless, he praised the Lord and prayed confidently with unwavering faith:

            Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
            thought the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
            though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
            yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

      I read Jack's article three times.  I became aware of the destructive attitudes I has been thinking and voicing.  I meditated on Jack's explanation of pain.  It was very humbling.  I consider this to be the turning point in my recovery.  Instead of grumbling and complaining to God day after day, I began praising God and thanking Him.  I thought, God must really care about me to send all those kind friends to pray for me and give me words of encouragement.

      A therapist began coming several times a week to work with me.  Gradually my strength began to return.  Soon I was able to take short walks.  The First week of February I said, "John, I need to go back to my place now.  I know I'm still very weak but I must start taking care of myself."

      Though the road back to good health would be lengthy, I knew I was on the right track.  I was learning to trust the Lord--one day at a time.  I felt certain that, with God's help, I would mount up with wings as eagles!