Night is the hardest and is when I feel so alone...
“It is always so quiet.
I think no matter if you were in another room...I am sure I could hear you breathe.
Now? My ears are met with silence. If I sit here long enough, I begin to hear some sound.
It might be the tapping of the keys as I type these words.
It may be the rustling of the grass from the deer that are grazing in the woods.
It may be laughter from our son playing on his computer with his brothers and friends.
It may be a gunshot way off in the woods far away.
What it is not, is you breathing.
Did I ever really hear you breathing from a distance? I don’t know.
But it has to be that I could. Somehow.
Because the dark brings on a silence that I have never before experienced in all of my days.
A silence that drives me crazy in unfamiliar territory.
It is the eve of an entire month that I have had to exist without your breath.
The days are excruciatingly endless. I long to hear you breathing next to me.
To reach out and feel you there.
To look and see your beautiful eyes and smile come right back to me.
You know the one...the one that looks at me and penetrates to my soul...
is as if through a veil, as you sit in a frame on my desk.
There is an absence of sound...an absence of speech.
Oh how I ache to hear your voice...in this room.
Not a recording...just you...plain ole amazing you.
I talk to you and am met with silence...only thoughts that I think you might be thinking...
or maybe what you might say to me.
And there we are...met with quiet again.
The air is thick and heavy and I find myself struggling to breathe as well.
And at that very moment, I see a vision of a feather softly floating from the heavens...
and I know that you are near...safe under the wings of Jesus.
I cannot hear the strong motion of His wings...or feel the wisp of wind...
but I have an assurance that His vast wings are over me too...
granting shelter in the midst of all the pain of not hearing you breathe.
I miss you with every ounce of my being and more.
I feel like I will not be able to go another day without your breath...your touch...your love.
I know He wants me to see and hear and know that He will not abandon me...
even when my heart feels something else.
Just breathe.”
The first time Ed was in the hospital, it was an emergency situation. He had collapsed at home and was transported to the ER by ambulance. It is the type of emergency where the doctors rush him to the ICU and tell me to call family. It was a frightening, dreadful stretch of time. He was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism... blood clots were stuck in his artery blocking the flow to part of the lung. It is life-threatening. Likely a result from the chemotherapy that he had been receiving.
I was so completely scared. Night after night in the hospital, I could hear all those machines beeping and buzzing like they were crying out to force life to stay in the room. The room was so loud. I couldn’t hear what I actually needed to hear...his breathing. His breathing. I couldn’t take it. At any moment the sound could change. So as I tried to sleep, I put my earpods in and listened to a song. The same song... over and over. Shelter …
The arrows fly, ten thousand fall
Still, You protect me through it all
The waters rise The oceans rage Still, You're the One the storm obeys In the shelter of Your presence In the shadow of Your wings I am safe I am safe I will hold onto Your promise You will not abandon me I am safe I am safe To You, I run when mountains shake You are my shield, my hiding place Almighty God I will draw near Your perfect love Casts out all fear In the shelter of Your presence In the shadow of Your wings I am safe, I am safe I will hold onto Your promise You will not abandon me I am safe, I am safe There's nothing left to fear There's nothing left to fear There's nothing left to fear There's nothing left to fear In the shelter of Your presence In the shadow of Your wings I am safe I am safe I will hold onto Your promise You will not abandon me I am safe I am safe In the shelter of Your presence In the shadow of Your wings I am safe I am safe I will hold onto Your promise You will not abandon me I am safe I am safe I am safe I am safe
I could hear Yahweh.
The arrows flew all around us. The waters rose, the ocean raged, the mountains shook. And still, we were kept safe. The storm obeyed. Yahweh was our shield, our hiding place. We were in the shelter of His presence...in the shadow of His wings. We had nothing to fear...we were safe. That song was on repeat every night that we were in that hospital room. Ed fought hard. We all fought hard. We walked out of the hospital... together... about two weeks later. He walked beside me... breathing.
For it is He who rescues you from the net of the trapper And from the deadly plague. He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may take refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and wall. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, Or of the arrow that flies by day; Psalm 91:3-5 NASB
If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take up the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will take hold of me. Psalm 139:8-10 NASB
I want to pause here for a minute and be so very real in the moment. It is now 3 years after that first hospital visit. As I write this, Shelter plays in the background... on repeat. And my heart longs to go back there and figure out ways to “fix” things better moving forward from there. There are so many things I wish had been different... hindsight. My heart still aches thinking about all the scenes from the past several years. I am human and feel so helpless. I still panic. I still “fight or flight”. Because someone so treasured by me is not here breathing next to me.
But there is One who is.
So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be to you; just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and *said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:21-22 NASB
Can you envision that? Sitting there talking with Jesus. He is giving you hope of a future because He is sending you. He purposefully leans in towards you. And gently breathes the Holy Spirit in you. I can picture myself sitting with Him, hanging on His every word... eyes closed... and breathing deeper than I have ever breathed before. I can only imagine that maybe my hubby took the deepest breath of all when He saw Jesus after he took his last breath on this side of heaven. That brings a calm within me. In a small way, it kind of makes me think about when I am saying a goodbye to my little grands when they are leaving in their car. I kiss my hand and then blow the kiss to them. It is reciprocated. The hand, the fervent breath. A display of affection that comes deep from within. Our heavenly Father loves us so very much. He sent His Son to die for us... and give us the gift of Holy Spirit. So close that we could feel His breath. Guiding us. Teaching us. Helping us to hold fast when we feel helpless and want to panic or run. He brings the still. The still that I felt the night I wrote about the silence of his breath.
On the day it will be said to Jerusalem: “Do not be afraid, Zion; {Mona} Do not let your hands fall limp. The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. Zephaniah 3:16-18 NASB
I love that. In the silence of the night. The ache in my soul. The absence of an earthly breath whispering in my ear. When there was silence and the earth was still and quiet. There was victory and rejoicing. Shouts of joy from Yahweh. Over me. I also believe there were tears that night, as well... because even in the victory of a battle won, there is loss to grieve. He has a love for me... and you, that is so “profound that it is inexpressible in words... the future holds an intimacy of love with Yahweh” What a promise! That night, there was a unique and personal love song being composed in the silence. As often there is... an intense love cannot help it.
We are not alone.
His presence is here.
Always.
Whether we realize it or not.
Yahweh sings over us.
As you continue to follow me on this journey, you will keep seeing the real me. I am messy... simultaneously, I am beautiful because of the Lover of my soul. I once had a friend jokingly tell me that my posts made it seem like I was bi-polar. No friend, not that... I am just real. And broken. And He still sings in the silence.
TrailBlazing:
Read Psalm 23 & I Kings 19:11-13
Find some time this week to just rest. Think about how His breath permeates through you and gives you life. Breathe deep. Listen for His whisper to fill your ear. Perhaps even create a love song back to Him. It could be a song, poem, prayer, painting… virtually anything. Remember, He is in your quiet.
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