I was invited by a friend to attend a writing class for a few weeks recently. I am glad I did. It was the first time I have made an effort to learn more about writing. This particular class was about writing a testimony of something God did in our lives. For the first time I had to tell a familiar story from my perspective. I had to express my feelings in the crisis and in the result. This was much harder! I have under valued my own personal experience during my husbands illness because his physical healing and recovery always seemed so much more powerful a story to tell.
So, there are many details missing to this story of the miraculous things God did in saving my husbands life, but here is a small part of that story from my perspective.
A Testament of God’s Peace in Crisis
By Jennifer Mersereau
With a recent move to Winnipeg for a job and our third baby just 3 months old, I felt that our life was finally on the upswing. So when my husband Larry stayed home from his new job with flu like symptoms nothing seemed unusually ominous. Not until he was still sick three days later and difficult to wake up.
Nine at night I was surprised and concerned to notice blood on a bathroom towel. Inspection found Larry had blood on his lips and tiny red spots all over his face and body, and feet and everywhere I looked. He did not wake with my increasingly frantic investigation until I shook him calling his name repeatedly. He finally did wake, but much to my astonishment he was not at all with it.
The ambulance trip and emergency room stay I walked through in shock. I learned Larry had Endocarditis; an infection in the lining of his heart. The infection had lodged in a heart valve and was throwing off blood clots over his entire body. Those were the red spots I had found all over him, tiny blood clots. In emergency they pumped multiple antibiotics into him at full throttle in hopes of reducing the infection in his blood. I later learned that about 50% of people who contract this type of infection do not survive.
After the first three days of delirium and uncertainty I began to settle into a routine of hospital visits, eating and sleeping. It became my normal. Prayer was big in each hospital room my husband was moved to. We had fully accepted that as God’s children we were not meant to have sickness so that was something I continually spoke against. I, and others with me claimed my husbands health and healing on a daily basis.
It was a battle though because while we spoke life and healing over Larry, my Mother-in-law continually spoke death and sickness over him. It was becoming more and more evident just how much peace God had given me during this time of crisis as I was forced to deal with my In-Laws daily. They had come to stay while Larry was in hospital, to see their youngest son.
God’s overwhelming peace was most evident to me the day I walked into the hospital around lunchtime to visit Larry, and was confronted by his folks in the lobby. His Mother approached me angrily. “Hello” I said in my naturally chipper way. “Where have you been”? she laid into me. “You don’t care about Larry! You don’t care that he has an aneurysm in his brain that could rupture at any time”! “You don’t care that he could die at any moment”! Anything else she said went unheard. I was taken aback by the attack. I was deeply hurt. Nothing could have been further from the truth but what could I say? I was very concerned. I was even forced to consider what would happen, and where I would go with our three children should my husband die. Her fears of his demise were unfounded. When I confronted the doctors about the possibility of an aneurysm I was told they had not even done a brain scan yet to know if there was an aneurysm. I decided to instruct the doctors and nurses to not pass on information to my Mother-in-law in order to help reduce the number of things she had to be negative about. I was to control what she knew so I would again not feel like I did not know something about my own husbands condition.
As time passed another obvious example of God’s peace within me and the lack of peace in my mother-in-law came up. While waiting the five plus hours for the heart surgery to be completed I anxiously avoided my In-Laws. I battled the internal feelings of guilt, hurt and anger towards them. I no longer trusted them. Instead I enjoyed some time laughing and talking in a different room from them with a friend who stayed with me most of the time during the surgery. Once my friend left and I had to return to the surgical waiting room I did not sit close to them at all. The pain I felt from the attack still fresh. When the Surgeon came out of surgery the three of us gathered around him to hear the news. He said, ”Everything went well” , but my relieved response of, “oh good!” went completely unheard because my mother-in-law fainted.
The physical process of healing for my husband after three surgeries in so many weeks was long but full of much encouragement. I was relieved my In-Laws finally left for home. That alone allowed me to finally process and enjoy the feelings of elation and excitement that I was entitled to feel after such victory in my husband health. We were now able to walk out and speak out our faith without the fear of our words being counteracted at every turn. Larry and I were able to discuss God’s goodness and His peace that I walked in during those hard, stress filled and uncertain days. We continue to marvel at the many large and small miracles that show God’s hand and faithfulness to us in that time of crisis.
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