Choices

I still haven't quite figured the new blogger "rules"...holy toledo, I can't find my way to my own dang blog these days! anyhow...

I found myself thinking about choices today. Actually, I was thinking about my amazing husband. The other day he commented that he would celebrate 25 years of sobriety this year, a few days before his 50th birthday! It got me to thinking about our life...about choices....

Long ago, 25 years ago in October, my husband, myself, my mother in law Elsie, father in law Gary and a "treatment center" employee from the 4th floor of the hospital were sitting in a hospital room in the cardiac care unit, where my husband spent his 25th birthday. The woman was talking to John about treatment and he was resisting.  I sat in the window, broken, sobbing from the betrayal, hurt and sense of failure at being lied to and betrayed and I had this huge fear that things would change (seriously, I know, but when you are codependent, you love the dance, the sickness of the person is the counterpart to your own sickness) and this huge fear that they wouldn't. My father and mother in law looked on and listened to this lady talk to John about treatment options, about the fact that if he didn't change he would either die or lose his marriage and that we needed help. After she left we started talking, I was buying the "I can stop on my own without any help" line...hook line and sinker...after all, my reason for being angry was about to stop, and the line "how will we pay our bills if I'm in here?"  was another good one.  I sat there, listening, crying, willing to do whatever he said to keep him with me, unable to imagine what life could be like with him sober (nope, hadn't even absorbed the drug free part yet).  Johns mom didn't say much and we were at a loss as to what to do and what decision to make, when the most amazing thing happened.  My gruff, rough, and usually linguistically crude, father in law, said, pointing at me...."you need to stay here and go through treatment, if you don't do it for you, do it for her"...and forever more he won my heart!!!  I have many many times remembered that moment with tears in my eyes, that he would care enough about me to tell his own son to stay in that hospital and get the help he needed to get clean and sober.  There was NO WAY we were gonna navigate those roads on our own, we were too sick, too broken and wounded and had no skills to make a marriage work.  So, he stayed.  He looked at his dad and agreed.  I wept and literally didn't stop for months and months.  In that time, the Lord called out to me via a wonderful woman who didn't pull any punches, cut to the chase and began to train me in the ways of Jesus and didn't let me get by with anything.  I went to bible study each week, grasping at what I found there and the hope and healing that began to take place in my heart.  John and I went to AA and Alanon meetings every week and made lots of amazing friends who we totally fell in love with, he started going to church and well, the story is just so long...

But like I said, it all began with a CHOICE....I will NEVER stop being grateful that my husband chose me, chose our kids, two already born and two yet to be born, he chose our son and daughters in law and our grandchildren and many school children that we would come into contact with over the years.  He CHOSE to not drink or use, every single day. He chose to be honest with me, open, sharing, baring it all for me to see and he still makes that choice today.  He chose to be forgiving, to be willing, and to learn.  He has the most teachable heart of any one I know and every day he looks at me and tells me he loves me, his heart pouring out in his eyes.  He chooses me every single day.   I will not ever lose the miracle of that season of our life.  One that we survived it.  If I think back, I can still remember that month he spent in the hospital and how lonely, how grief stricken I was, and yet, how hopeful I was.  I was afraid too. Afraid to trust. That one took YEARS for me, but my husband is also very patient and willing to wait.  It all goes back to that day, that day he chose to live, to give us a chance, to allow (unwittingly) the Lord to work in his heart and take us both to a place that, had we known that we would be here, in this life, with the MANY MANY MANY blessings we have, we would have not ever believed it.  He CHOSE to ask Jesus in his heart and on that night, amongst my sisters whom I had trusted with some of my worst hurts (they were there when I was alone and he was in the hospital) and amongst our soon to be best friends, Mike and Nancy and next to my "mom" in the Lord, Trudy, the Lord gave him the biggest gift of all, salvation and the holy spirit, all in one fell swoop.

The other day I was cleaning out my dresser drawers and found some cassette tapes.  One was labeled Bales Harleus (um yeah, Kales and Aaron playing with a cassette tape recorder at the age of, oh, I don't know, preteen and below...HILARIOUS...had to take it out of my tape player in the car so I could drive) and another one labeled "John's testimony 1990" a mere 3 years or so after he got clean and sober.  I can't wait to listen to it.

The absolute miracle of my life is a testimony of God's love for me and for our kids, their loved ones, and their kids, born and unborn. Lately I just can't seem to fathom it all.  As I sit here, my husband picks out some new songs for the worship team to learn, he sits there, singing to the music, and again, I think...Oh Lord, thank you that he chooses You, thank you that he loves You and that he loved me enough to change his life, change our life.  Lord, thank you that, in those dark days of addiction, lies, betrayal, and hopelessness, You could see THIS day. You knew that we would have to go through a lot to get here and You never once left our sides, even when we couldn't seem to figure out how to get along, how to make it work and how to get past the pain.  You were there, teaching us, training us, giving us people to walk along side us (thank you old friends, I am so grateful for you all).

So today, thinking about choices.....hmmmm.....I choose YOU Jesus....I choose to walk through whatever You allow to come my way, knowing that I will not be alone, I will be able to do it through Your power and might...after all, I've done this before right?

Thank you Lord, you are my best friend and thank you Lord for letting me marry a man who became my best friend. I am so very blessed.

Oh, I forgot...we paid our bills that month he was in the hospital because an amazing couple in the community gave us a huge huge gift charging us to give back, when we could, (and we have) and, I still have the letter that came with the money.