To Hell and Back

Our son and daughter are almost six years apart. This was not by design on our part, but I believe it was on God's. Knowing it was going to be a rough ride, I think He was waiting until our little son was old enough to take care of some of his own needs. For four years we had been praying and trying for another little one. And then it happened! I must have been only about a week pregnant when I woke up in the middle of the night with the dry heaves and knew. "Morning" sickness was something that had plagued my first pregnancy, and, so, I knew the feeling well. I waked my husband immediately with this great and happy news; we were finally going to get another baby! We were both delighted, but my stomach was in revolt. Again, "morning" sickness lasted the whole day, then days and days of "icky" turned into weeks, and weeks even to months. This time it was much worse. Regularly, I fell to my knees in our bathroom and "worshipped" before the "porcelain goddess." Yet all along the doctor kept saying, "it will soon get better." It didn't. ( It took twenty more years before a small stomach malformation was finally diagnosed) Our answered prayer seemed to be sinking into a nauseating nightmare. Of course, my weight was going in the wrong direction. I had started at only 98, but when three months pregnant, I weighed 92 pounds, was weak as a kitten, and depressed as hell. Being so exhausted, tears came easily and often. Every day was a gray day. Then my husband got sick, and parents had to be called from afar to help. Mood and food badly needed upgrading. It was the "pits." At the doctor's suggestion, I checked myself into a "psych" unit for a week - mood elevators and locked elevators. While we got "breakfast in bed," lunch and dinner were taken at a nice public cafeteria downstairs. Chess pie proved to be a marvelous restorative! I gained 10 pounds in those 7 days and recovered a "bit" of my spirits before going home. There was a long way to go, and it still seemed God had deserted me. When I told my mother that I could no longer pray, she suggested this: "Well, pray that you can pray." I may have been depressed, but I sure knew a trick when I heard one. It was a "good" trick, and it did eventually work! But it was a long time before I felt like "me" again.

It is very bad when you lose your physical health, and it is even worse when your emotional health starts to waver, but losing one's spiritual health is as bad as it gets. This time in my life was certainly the closest I ever came to "hell," which means being separated from God. I never want to be in "that place" again. Being almost grown, our daughter now knows that I "went through hell" to get her - and that she was well worth it. Jesus went through Hell to get us. Were we worth it? He thinks so!

Psalm 102.3-5 - My health is broken and my heart is sick; my food is tasteless, and I have lost my appetite. I am reduced to skin and bones.

Job 17.7 - My eyes are dim with weeping and I am but a shadow of my former self.

Psalm 6.2-3 - Pity me, O Lord, for I am weak. Heal me for my body is sick, and I am upset and disturbed. My mind is filled with apprehension and with gloom, Oh, restore me soon.

Lamentations 2.11 - I have cried until the tears no longer come; my heart is broken; my spirit poured out.

Psalm 77.4 - I am too distressed even to pray.

Psalm 73.26 - My health fails, my spirits droop, yet God remains.

2 Timothy 2.13 - Even when we are too weak to have any faith left, he remains faithful and will help us.

Psalm 38.9 - Lord, you know how I long for my health once more. You hear my every sigh.

Micah 7.9 - God will bring me out of my darkness into the light, and I will see his goodness.

Psalm 103.3-4 - He heals me. He ransoms me from hell; he surrounds me with lovingkindness and tender mercies.

Psalm 30. 2-3 - O, Lord my God, I cried to thee for help, and thou hast healed me. O, Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from Sheol and restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.

Isaiah 26.17 - How we missed your presence, Lord! We suffered as a woman giving birth.

Psalm 127.3 - Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a real blessing.