Echoes of Guilt.

 I wrote this a few days ago, after a particularly harder day than usual.

Worry for the living verses grieving for the dead. 

I never realized the extent of these polar opposites. I never knew they were a battle to fight, a war to be won, lost, stalemated? Can there be a stalemate in war? You very rarely hear of such a thing.

My life before Jerry died had become a complete state of anxiousness underneath my normal living. I say underneath because for all intents and purposes my life has been lived on a level of realized anxiety since I was ten years old. The levels have fluctuated in a cognizant manner since that age. I'm sure they existed before then, but after ten I knew the monster of anxiety existed in a form of being attacked and rendered incapacitated in one manner or another by said monster. Up until the first panic attack from anxiety (which was an all-out assault on my ability to perform my normal ten year old's life routine) I existed in a world free of the monster. From ten years old onwards I was left with a residual scarring from that first attack that has never, and will never (until my Savior returns) leave me. I'm scarred for life (as most of us are in one way or another).

Some of you might be jumping up and down in your seats with your hand raised high wanting to call my attention to the fact I believe in a Savior (as mentioned moments ago) and isn't 'said Savior' supposed to give me freedom right now from all worry, all anxiety? Doesn't the life manual given to me by Him tell me not to worry, to leave all my cares with Him? Yes, yes it does and it has a lot of wonderful life lessons to teach me that are very real. And I do leave my cares with Him, that is why I still exist today. However I cannot crawl out of my scarred flesh into the new flesh I know I'll have one day- new flesh given to me by my Savior when He returns for me. Until then I am the person I am, and I surrender this person I am to my Savior constantly to be kept by Him for eternity. I live with this balm of hope covering my scars, but I still live in the war zone of life and I'm still being attacked daily by the unseen. And the attacker loves nothing better than to keep my life fraught with situations to obsessively fear. My Defender prevents that obsession from incapacitating me completely and utterly. My Defender is a very real, live, working force in my life so put your hands down- things would be a millions times worse if I weren't trusting in my Savior.

Tell me if you must that I should not worry, I agree with you, I should not, but agreeing with you about that isn't the same thing as be able to stop something that is part of the fabric of your being. 

Back to the why of writing this deluge of self-introspection. 

When Jerry was alive- in the beginning of our relationship and for the longest time I didn't have any significant worry about him beyond the normal concerns we all have for someone we love. I basked in his love and devotion as all newly in love couples do for several years (oh yeah we had ups and downs in those years but the bask of devotion never left). That love matured and transformed even as our lives in general did the same. Then the heart attack happened in September 2001, just a week or so before the date most Americans yearly recall (in fact we just did a few days ago) the tragedy of September 11th 2001. 

Our lives were forever altered by that heart attack. That bask of his love and devotion was suddenly something that could in a very real way be taken from me in a moment. You don't have a major almost life-ending heart attack without it altering your life in various ways. The anxiety over Jerry's health as a newly birth monster inside me - began that day and like all baby monsters they have no choice but to grow up.

This baby monster stayed very small, as it grew very slowly having growth spurts with various back, neck, wrist, pacemaker surgeries Jerry underwent over the next nine years. Then the monster hit puberty and grew very large in 2010 when cancer grew inside Jerry's right lung and altered our lives completely. It wouldn't have been so bad if surgery alone was a factor but along with the cancer removal there came an almost life ending bacterial infection that invaded Jerry's body. The medicine to combat the horrific infection permanently disabled Jerry's ability to ever walk normally again by severely and permanently damaging his vestibular nerve keeping him from ever being able to balance his body on his own two feet- again. From then on it was a cane, crutches and eventually a wheelchair while his body slowly deteriorated over the next twelve years undergoing more surgeries of the heart bypass, back, neck, wrist, arm, gallbladder, and so on, kind.  During the next twelve years that pubescent anxiety monster in me continued to grow as Jerry's health continued to deteriorate.  On year 11 of those 12, things took a major turn for the extreme worst- that was May 2021 and the last back surgery that stripped Jerry of His ability to stand upright even with assistance props (crutches, walkers) for more than a few seconds.  

The anxiety monster in my life lived underneath the surface for the most part where it existed relentlessly. There were outside evidences of it breaking through off and on over the next year as it grew and grew and grew, you know these anxiety monsters can rival the size of …well… there is little to compare them too in all honesty. I think of a tapeworm actually. I know, EW! But I've had the unfortunate opportunity to see on a television medical drama where a doctor extracts a tapeworm from someone and I thought they'd never stop pulling that awful, gross thing out (I really didn't watch it all I had to look away it was just too gross for me).  How something that long could live inside a small body just baffled me and yet anxiety is like that --something so huge inside, constantly growing while we go about our normal day to day lives with the occasional ache and pain from its unseen presence. 

Again, why am I babbling on so? Because as I stated in my very first sentence way back up there- 'Worry for the living verses grieving for the dead'.  

I feel such shame inside over the death - not of Jerry - but of that Jerry labeled anxiety monster which lived inside me for so incredibly long. With Jerry's dying that huge indescribably monstrous anxiety over his health, over not being able to do anything at all to really help him get better, over watching him suffer so horrifically day after day with the groans of pain and eyes filled with agony unspoken- that part of me which feared  and worried about all that was going on combined with the tragedy of helplessness to alter anything at all- was forever silenced. Jerry was no longer here, I no longer had to be anxious for him, or over him in any way.

When a monster inside you dies the relief is overwhelming, but combine that relief with the HORROR of the grief monster that takes its place and you live a life of intense confusion, as the battle inside ensues. The ghost of that monster anxiety versus the newly created instantly born huge grief creature has created a war zone within me. How dare I feel anything remotely like relief in any way whatsoever!!! Grief screams this at me over and over and over.  And while the death of the anxiety monster within is but an echo, like the phoenix rising from ashes analogy, death has spawned a new creature struggling to grow, to replace the Jerry anxiety monster with the widow monster and all its many little (not so little) anxiety babies.

Still, that echo of guilt over the relief of the death of the anxiety monster that lived while Jerry lived taunts me whenever it can, uncaring that new anxiety babies have been born. Echoes of guilt.. 

And life goes on with the echoes ringing all around. Caregiver's guilt- it's a real thing. Though I'm sure there are many names for the guilts we feel- warranted or not. And like telling the anxiety scarred person not to feel anxious at all, you can tell me not to feel this shame, this guilt, that Jerry wouldn't want me to feel this way- I know that's true, but it remains underneath the surface. Your well-meaning, loving, kind words are always appreciated and loved, never shunned or unwanted, never. Just love me in the place I am, with the monsters that plague me, pray for my continued love of God always.

Would I embrace that anxiety monster that lived when Jerry lived, and welcome that monster back if it meant Jerry was still living? YES! However, that's only extreme selfishness on my part, because Jerry's suffering lived with him and I find solace in knowing he's in no more pain at all whatsoever.  

I'll continue to live with all my anxieties underneath the surface of my life, I know that's how so many of us humans live because of the sin-filled world we live in now. I will cling to my Savior constantly grabbing hold of Him - a life preserver tossed to me sometimes hourly as the murky, storm tossed waters exists all around me. Jesus is my life, Jesus is my hope, Jesus is my all in all, and it will be HIS LOVE that casts out all fear, all anxiety. The Christian armor we are given to wear in this spiritual battle we fight is there for a reason- it's not to transport us out of the war zone but to protect us from being mortally wounded while we are within it. 

1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 

No fear in God - He is perfect love, complete love.

God casts out fear.

Fear has torment.

The fearful - the untrusting, the unhopeful, those lost to fear without hope, those who only exist in fear and nothing more, cannot be made complete in God because God gives us the hope of life beyond all fear. God is the monster slayer of anxiety and fear- and fear cannot overwhelm beyond all hope those who choose to love God. We will one day be made complete in God, in love, we hope, we press on towards the mark, the high calling, we fight the good fight of faith, we grab hold and never let go of the hope we have in Christ. In the midst of storm He can walk on water and He calls to us to walk with Him- we might not be able to walk on the water with Him for long, but we will forever be trying over and over again, and one day we will only ever walk on water with Him, the storm will be over. All monsters slain- anxiety, grief and all the other monsters of our lives gone forever.

'Lord, I believe! Help thou my unbelief!'  This is my prayer always!  All through Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior, now and forever! Amen!!!!!!!