My parents with Grandma, my sister and two younger brothers in tow visited us that summer when Laurie was six months old. We spent a few days camping and at night trying to avoid skunks on the way to the outhouse. I felt great and we had a wonderful time. I felt so well I figured I wouldn’t die anytime soon; though, it’s something we never talked about.
Day to day life resumed after they left and I continued to see the doctor on a monthly basis. Larry’s four year tour in the Air Force ended in November of that year and we’d decided to retire to civilian life.
On my doctor visit in October the doctor gravely informed me that he deemed it about a 95% chance that a new mass had formed in my abdominal cavity. Because of our soon release from the Air Force he wanted to do surgery almost immediately, that way I would have time to recover some before we travelled northward.
First I needed to make arrangements for child care. My mother again was invited to enjoy her grandchildren for awhile and gladly came. My mother-in-law also came as she planned to help Larry as he drove back to Portland, Oregon. We’d decided to settle in Portland and would live in the trailer while we looked for work and a place to live. She would drive our car and he would drive the pickup and pull the trailer home we’d purchased just for this purpose.
My mother, then, would accompany me and the children on the bus to Boise. No, we weren’t breaking up but because of the surgery and my need for help as I recovered further, this seemed the best plan of action. Larry would find a place for us and then when I felt able to take on my responsibilities, he’d come take me home.
Thus it worked out that I had two grandmas, two kids and one husband in one small trailer home and me in a hospital bed—again. My mother, when she got the word that I needed surgery again got on the phone and called her church prayer line, all our relatives and all her friends. Anyone who could and would pray she called, so I knew I was surrounded by prayer as I went under the knife—again.
Boy, was I mad! Someone just slapped me in the face and if I could have I would have slapped them back. My eyes flutter opened and looked directly into my kind doctor’s eyes, the same one who’d done my first operation. He said, “We thought you’d never wake up.” I blinked and saw my mother on one side of the bed and my mother-in-law on the other side both anxiously watching me.
It seems they had a hard time waking me up from the anesthesia. I slept peacefully long after I should have roused thus the doctor felt it necessary to slap me in the face—and that did it. I was mad when I woke up but calmed down when I knew the whole story. But the rest of the story is even better. The doctor said, “We didn’t find any mass. I was certain there was one there or I wouldn’t have put you through the operation.” I looked at my mom and we both knew God had arrived on the scene.
My husband sat in the lobby watching over the two kids and anxiously awaiting word of my condition. They swapped places and we rejoiced that the mass somehow either wasn’t there or disappeared. I took this opportunity to point out to Larry how faithful God is and that He took care of me. But Larry didn’t believe in the God I believed in. He’d been raised in the Catholic church by his mother, a devout Catholic, and somewhere along the way lost any belief he might have had in a loving, caring Heavenly Father. This caused problems in our marriage for many years after. We had become a house divided.
Has following God caused a problem in your marriage?
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