Tag: death

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The Day After

My eyes opened and I knew I had to face this day. How am I going to do this? Exhaustion consumed my body before my feet touched the floor. But I knew I had to begin somehow. I felt empty, lonely;  I have to write, there is healing for me through writing. Expressing my thoughts on paper, clears my head, helps the hurt flow through to my pen. This hurt is going to take time, I know it’s not going away in an instant. For how do you say good bye to your best friend and expect not to hurt even when you know it’s not really good bye but see ya later buddy!

It’s that period in between that you wonder how you’re going to cope. I have to believe there is life after death, that there is more to life then this. If not, what’s the point? I have to have faith and trust in something or someone bigger. Which will lead me once again on a path to find answers. Questions that I really already know the answers to. But today I need confirmation and thus my journey down life’s path begins once again.

If my path leads me to the ‘Big Bang Theory’ then it’s there I will certainly find no hope. We live, we die, the END! I can’t accept that, I cannot live my life with no hope. It would be like I were nonexistent. There would be no purpose, a life lost in the wind. I really don’t like this ‘path’; it’s cold and hopeless. I think I’ll turn around and take a path that leads to hope.

This path is much brighter, I see light, bright beams of hope. I think I’ll take this ‘path’ which leads to a Creator; a God that is all knowing, all powerful and everywhere present. A God that loves us and gives us so much hope and purpose and love; for ‘God is Love'(1 John 4:8). For He promises us in 1Thessalonians 4:13,14 “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep(died, passed away), that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him”. 4:16 “For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first” 4:17 “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord”. Wow, what amazing promises of God. There is no greater hope then this, death is not the end but the beginning! Cancer did not win and will not win, if we die in Christ we will never lose our battle with cancer, it’s then we are cancer free, we have won! To quote my father on his deathbed, “Either way I will win! I will be healed and go home or die and go to my heavenly home”. Where we read in 2 Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me on that day; and not me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing”. Amazing!

Do you love His appearing? Do you believe in the return of Jesus? Do you believe in Him? Do you believe in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. That is the gospel in a nutshell, its that simple! Billy Graham once said, ‘that once you heard the gospel message once; your life would be forever changed; whether you accept it or not, you will still be changed’. Because if you do not accept Him, you now have the knowledge of the gospel and will be forever etched into your mind. I’m loving this ‘path’ I chose.

The song says, “But until then, my heart will go on singing, until then with joy I’ll carry on, until the day my eyes behold that City, until the day God calls me Home”.

But for now, God didn’t leave us helpless, alone or rejected. He promised to walk this path with us, to never leave us or forsake us. He promised us strength for every step of the way; ‘Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint’. So when life’s losses, troubles, illnesses and tribulations weigh us down to the point of exhaustion, we have the promise that we wait on Him, He will renew our strength again! I am overwhelmed by the mercies and promises of God. Now this is Hope!

“All is well with my soul, He is God in control, I know not all His plans, but I know I’m in His hands.” I want to end this blog with a verse from 1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain; faith, hope, and love: but the greatest of these is love.”

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“Our Story”

This blog  is taken from a speech I presented at Church just recently. I told my story there before entitled, A Broken Mind, which can still be found on our website at www.harrislisa72.com. But this blog isn’t just about me, it’s about my family; Lisa, Logan and Lauren. A family that is struggling and at times broken but I want to share with you the power of the human spirit to overcome any adversity with the help of God and a determination to never quit, never give up on hope. I have to make clear that this is not a onetime fix but a daily, conscious effort that requires a strength that is far beyond all human comprehension.

John 16:33                                                                                                                                                   I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. IN THIS WORLD YOU WILL HAVE TROUBLE. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Our lives as been anything but trouble free, we have had more then our share of trials and tribulations. The storms of our lives have been many, there have been times when our ship was barely above water, we were sinking but I believe we were not in that ship alone. And that is why we are still riding out the storm. The storms may have beaten us down, exhausted us and at times left us for dead. But its these experiences and life altering traumas that have forced us to put our total dependence on God. For what we have experienced, are experiencing and what we are going to experience, we have to trust in the God of the impossible, the God that cannot fail, the God who has a plan for our lives; a plan we may not see at the moment.

I speak as a realist, not a pessimist. One thing I want to be is totally honest, totally real. I cannot say to you that we don’t question, doubt and have moments when we feel like we are somewhere wandering in the wilderness. But  we realize if we are going to survive this storm of life, we will have to put our trust and hope in the resurrected Christ. The Christ who died and rose again and today is seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us, what an amazing promise! That is what gives me hope, that is what gives us the strength to go on.

Let me just elaborate for a few moments on our not so ‘normal life’; by society’s standards. We don’t portray the perfect ‘facebook’, ‘cookie cutter life’. Let me take you back to my father’s death, my first real traumatic experience. He was a man of God, a man of faith and wisdom. Life certainly wasn’t always easy but he trusted God that tomorrow was going to be better, he never lost faith. When all nine children and Mom were gathered around his bed, he said before his passing that what truly mattered was right here in this room; his family and God; nothing else mattered when it came to material things. And right now I believe Dad is just ‘Gone Home’. He taught me what was important in life and what truly mattered in the end.

After  some months after his passing, Lisa and I had time to think and ponder over our own lives. After been married for eleven years with no children we thought about what Dad taught us on his deathbed and maybe we should have children too; just not nine! So the fun began, before long we were pregnant, although the doctors told Lisa she wasn’t. But Lisa knew she was; a Mother’s intuition. We decided to take a little vacation to the Dominican Republic. This trip would turn out to be one of the most traumatic experiences of our life. To make a long story short; while on the plane returning home, Lisa felt sick and decided to go back to the washroom on the plane. She never returned to her seat again, it ended with Lisa unconscious on the floor of the plane. Barely a pulse and turning blue; Lisa was dying. Once the plane landed, Lisa was rushed by ambulance to the nearest hospital, where we learned Lisa was hemorrhaging from an ectopic pregnancy and was taken for emergency surgery, where we lost our baby, Lisa lost  80% of her blood volume and was minutes from dying. This was the beginning of the storms of ‘our’ lives.

It was a long and traumatic journey back to real life. For months we grieved the loss of our baby in silence. We still so desperately wanted to have a baby but were told that would be impossible. But we never gave up, to fast forward; we went to Calgary for IVF; invetro fertilization and to defy all odds and with God’s intervention we were pregnant and seven months later we had a handsome baby boy who we named Logan. He was the joy of our lives.

But then when Logan was around a year old, I began to have severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. And that was where my story began and I was given a life altering diagnosis, that left me both mentally and physically disabled. And since that time until now I have struggled and still struggling to regain my life back. Then in the midst of all this trauma, we were miraculously blessed with a baby girl. She was certainly a light in the darkness; sunshine in the midst of all the rain. But then on her first birthday Lauren was diagnosed with spastic guadriplegia cerebral palsy- a life altering diagnosis for all of us. Our world fell apart. Trying to describe CP and what that involves is much like trying to describe my own diagnosis; both very complex and complicated. And to try and explain what either is, is impossible unless you experience it for yourself.

We were forced to make major life changes and had to move to Bay Roberts. And the storms have never ended, there’s been and will always be some unforseen battle and that is the reality. But in order to survive such traumatic and life changing experiences we have had to place our trust in God and believe that He is in the storm with us, He is in our ship and we will not sink. The minute we take our eyes off Him, it’s then we’ll sink. There are places I’ve seen His hand at work; in spite of all the trauma, trials and tribulations, there are so many miracles that present itself in our lives: 1. Our marriage as survived, struggling but surviving. Statistics show that majority of marriages don’t survive when faced with the ordeals that we have encountered. 2. The miracle that Lauren was conceived in the first place, when we were told it would be impossible for us to get pregnant on our own. 3. That Logan was fertilized in a petri dish and was viable to be implanted within Lisa’s womb and was successful; is not only amazing but a miracle. 4. That I can stand behind this pulpit, when I was in the acute stage of my illness I could barely stand at all. 5. That Lisa was capable of carrying a baby after the trauma she had experienced when we lost our first baby. So, I just want to say, ‘thank you Lord, for your blessings on us’.

Many times when discouragement knocks on our heart’s door and we find it difficult to see the light of day; we have to remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness. I don’t portray to be ‘Christian of the Year’ but I do say, ‘I’m a sinner saved by grace, so unworthy of the blood’. But yet He died for unworthy me, thank you just isn’t enough, His mercy rewrote my life. For without Calvary I would not be where I am today. So all the Glory belongs to Him. Thank you, thank you, thank you!