In Sickness and In Health

"Marriage… is the civil status of one man and one woman united in law for life, for the discharge to each other and the community of the duties legally incumbent on those whose association is founded on the distinction of sex."
- Black's Law Dictionary, dating back to 1891

Marriages, that endures for a long period of time, like most things will experience it's cyle. The good, bad, and the ugly! Of course, we would like for most of our "cycles" to be good but that is definitely not reality. To EVERYTHING there is a time and a season!

This season is "In Sickness and In Health."

This past year I had orthoscopy surgery done on my left knee. I endured 10-months away from work, physical theraphy, and primary dependence on my husband.

After returning to work the following October, my husband had an emergency surgery to install a pacemaker that in that same month! It did not end there, in the following February he had to have a mass removed and had complications that forced him to have another emergency surgery after a two week hospital stay and a day return home! His intestines twisted and everything that he had eaten went no farther than the blockage. Unbeknownst to us, all that he had consumed would be finding it's way out! Fortunately, I had already put him in the car and had taken him to the Emergency Room, when that had finally settle him in that it ALL came out like a rushing river over a dam!

It's May, 2011 but looking back it's just like it all happened just yesterday!

"In sickness and in health," this line was in the wedding vows that we had made to each other! That was some 12 years behind us.

We were younger, stronger, and more energetic then. Now, looking back, we said the line but didn't take in fully that one day we would be facing it like an on-coming Mack truck.

Sickness brings a measure of uncertainty to the relationship, because no matter how much you love your partner, you cannot take away what they must go through.

There is an helplessness that you so desire to remove. So you sit in the chair beside the bed and hold hands, and pray. You pray for strength to sustain you through this time. You pray that you be strong enough to bear the weakness placed on the marriage. One must do what two use to do together.

I had to rework my whole schedule, even my job. Took vacation just to cover him, to be there for him, to watch over him. Then there was the children, dropping one off at Elementary School and the other to daycare. There was dropping off my adult son to work at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. These were things that "he" did but could not do but something I must do now.

Between the dropping off and picking up I was sitting in the hospital room. Waiting for the daily report of the doctors, to make sure the nurses were taking care of him, and that I emotionally supported him.

I washed out my Super Woman Cape and even added extra starch!

The running and time spent in the hospital was taking a toll.

I was emotionally and physically drained, but duty called and someone had to answer. Praying constantly for him to get better and have no more setbacks was my constant and only prayer for the month.

I was resolved to do what was necessary in order to keep things moving. When your partner is incapacitated it reminds you all, so clearly, how fragile life will be as we journey together through life.

I realized something that I've known for a while, sometimes love is simply not enough. I've known people who've walked away from a partner due to a terrible sickness, car accident, or tragedy and they've walked away. Loving the partner but not able to withstand the situation at hand.

Along with love you must have committment! Reminding you that no matter what the challenge, the two of you are committed to see it through. Committment makes you stand when you want to fold. Wipe the tears away and enter the room with a smile and comforting words. It becomes you strength as you stay committed to the One who holds every tomorrow.

Marriage is not to be entered into lightly, it is not for the double-minded, sometimey, and faithless soul. Marriage must be able to stand up to life and whether the storms together in order that it might last without losing one another.