Karen and I finally had our moment to really talk yesterday. Her husband Berg (Bill) passed away March 11, 2011 only two days after Hospice came into their home.
How I desperately wish I could have been with her during this time, but Karen will be coming to town this Thursday for Berg’s celebration of life!
She told me about their final days and moments, we cried. We talked about the memories through the years and all the funny things that happened and we also laughed.
Karen is one of a kind! God truly broke the mold after he created her. Karen gave me the heads up that she cut her hair off, its short and she hates it! She did it as an act of love and sacrifice when Berg was facing chemotherapy. Of course Berg went through chemo and didn’t lose a single hair himself! What are the odds? That is a classic Karen story, exactly what would happen to her. Her hair sacrificing days are over!
Karen has amazing faith. She always has. She is a rock in life that others brace them selves to. She told me through the whole horrible nightmare of Berg’s fight against pancreatic cancer, ultimately losing his life to it, how her faith strengthened and her walk with God grew closer than ever in her life.
I am relating. The months following Keith’s suicide, my relationship with Billy temporarily severed, the financial loss of child support, a car accident, major changes in the office, life knocked the wind out of me.
In the face of deep sorrow I was given my greatest opportunity to grow closer to God. Finding comfort only in the shadow of the Almighty.
What was meant to blindside me made me stronger. What was meant to be a loss became a gain! Doors of opportunity opened that I would have not have experienced otherwise.
Today I find myself in a much better place than where I was before.
So many times in life we find ourselves in situations by choice or not by choice. Indeed, it is a path where we really find out who we are.
I understand at the deepest level what Karen was saying.
Life is constantly presenting to us new beginnings. I wake up every day to a familiar path, knowing that tomorrow there will be new paths.
New paths do not frighten me. God has brought me safely through unthinkable situations.
My dad has always said that I am the only person he knows that can fall into a pile of sh** and come out smelling like a rose. I love my dad!
I embrace the adventures that tomorrow’s new paths bring. I am always up for a good challenge. Even when the going gets challenging in life’s journey, I have an amazing God that knows where I have been and knows where I am going. He is unchangeable, unshakeable, unstoppable and unsurpriseable. It’s a good thing, because life continues to surprise the heck out of me!
Karen is also a storm survivor. What a lavishly loving God we have to grow wings in the face of adversity.
