I have been a widow for many years.  My youngest was almost 3 and my oldest had just turned 4 when their dad was in a fatal car accident.  Curtis and I were only together for 5 short years but it always seemed we lived a lifetime in those years.  From the very beginning, everything seemed to move fast for us!  Only people who are closest to me know all the ins and outs of our short marriage.  To be honest we had more bad days than good but I truly loved him and he was the best time I ever had!  

When he had his car accident we had only been back together for a year.  Prior to that, we had been separated for six months.  It was a very long six months.  He lived in Austin with another girl for most of that too.  This was when I truly learned what it meant to pray!  To most this seemed like an impossible situation.  I mean he lived hours away from me and with another girl.  But you see this is what I know about my God……the more impossible the situation, the bigger He can show up!!

I learned to pray with scripture…standing on God’s word in my prayers.   I learned to pray with passion and most of all to pray with perseverance!   I knew God wanted my marriage to work and I knew that He would bring Curtis back to me.  I just had to wait for His timing.  I’m not saying it was easy because it wasn’t.  I cried many, many tears and there were times when I had doubts and fears that maybe it wasn’t going to happen.

God always gave me encouragement along the way.

Every single thing I prayed for came to pass until Curtis did move back home to be with me and the girls.  Was the last year of our marriage perfect??? Nowhere near it but I can honestly say that the last six months was the best it had ever been.  We were so young and had 2 daughters so quickly and we were really just learning how to be married.

When Curtis had his accident, I became very angry with God.  I didn’t understand why God would bring Curtis back to me to only take him away a year later.  I didn’t go to church for a long time because of my anger.  With time the hurt lessened but never completely went away.  You never completely get over something like this.  I still have days where I miss him and days where the thought of him brings tears to my eyes.  He still sometimes visits me in my dreams and I wake up fully expecting to see him beside me.  I woke up from a surgery one time asking for him and the nurses were so confused because they had no idea who he was.

I did take my girls back to church.

I did get over being angry with God.

I did not realize though that I still needed some healing from this.

In my walking and talking with God, He started bringing up this past pain and anger and even the time of separation.  See, when God brings you through something in your past, it can be meant to encourage you with something in your present.  God showed up for me in a miraculous way when Curtis and I were separated and God wanted to remind me and encourage me that He could and would do it again.  Not only that but for the first time I thanked God for bringing Curtis back home to the girls and me and giving us another year of memories with him.  The last year of our time together are some of the girls’ most vivid memories of their daddy.  I am amazed sometimes at how much they remember since they were so young.  I began to thank God that my girls had that time with their daddy and that they remembered so much of it!  I began thanking God for carrying me through the separation and carrying me through Curtis’s death.  After I lost him, I didn’t know what to do but get up and do what I always did….carry on with the day.  The girls still needed baths, they needed to be dressed and fed, they still needed to be taken to gymnastics, they still needed me and so I did what had to be done but I never really took the time to heal.  So 14 1/2 years later I cried out to God for healing and I cried out to God in thanksgiving and praise!

There are other areas of my life that God began bringing to my attention and providing healing.  I do not have a great relationship with my biological mom.  No need to go into details but God really began putting her on my heart so now I call her almost every week just to check on her.  I now answer the phone without cringing when she calls me.  The closer I walk with Him, the more He speaks to me and the more healing He gives me.  I truly believe when you are walking with God every area of your life will begin to fall into place.  You just have to be willing to listen and yield to what God is trying to tell you.  I will thank God every day for the rest of my life for this particular storm that even healed hurts from 14 1/2 years ago.  

Listen to the Lord and let Him heal you from your past.  Let Him heal your broken relationships.  Let Him be your guide through life’s storms!