Giving it Over to God
To say the last nine months have been hard would be an understatement! On March 4th, 2025, my whole world was rocked to the core when Andy my beloved husband, best friend, partner in silliness and all things good had a massive stroke that killed a quarter of his brilliant brain.
Even with my Village, who is/are the most incredible group of people I’ve ever known, and my church also equally amazing coming to my aid I struggled. I’m ashamed to say there were many, many days where I contemplated just chucking it in. However, my religion frowns on that, so it was just not an option. I should note here that I am what is called a “cradle Catholic” which means I’ve been Catholic since the cradle. I may not appear overly religious, talking about blessings, being Christian etc…. however, my faith and religious believes do indeed run very deep, which is why taking the easy way out would never actually occur, although it had crossed my mind more than once.
Instead, what I started to do was lean into my religious faith. At first, it was just when things or events got to be too much, too overwhelming and I would find myself starting to shut down, emotionally, and physically. While Andy was in ICU, a dear friend from my Village gave me a book titled Jesus Calling. My friend included an inscription in the front “Remember you are never alone” that resonates with me still. In the beginning, I only read the book occasionally, but then I noticed that each page was dated and that the book was intended to be read daily. Until then, I’d not read anything religious since my days as a student in parochial school. After 12 years of Catholic education, and 59 years of going to church on a weekly basis, I felt comfortable and fluent with the bible and God’s teachings. That said, I started to read from this book each day.
Although Andy’s health improved over the months, it became clear it was going to be a long road to recovery and along the way more unexpected and not so great things happened. In September one of our guests ran their car into our Airbnb, forcing us to close for repairs. That same week my mom was diagnosed with cancer on her lung, where I immediately travel over the mountain to be her temporary care giver as she had surgery and returned home to recover. I couldn’t stay for long because I still had Andy, I was care giver to as well as teaching at the University. Then we had a massive rainstorm, and the main house sustained a roof leak. Although the roof was only eight years old, the roofing company who installed it had gone out of business so there was no warranty to cover the repairs. Several weeks after that the main line of our irrigation broke, and I came home to a flooded front yard and no water going to the gardens or lawns. It felt like it was just one massive thing after another week after week with no reprieve in sight.
As I faced each event, I found myself giving them over to God more and more. Until one day, I decided, why not just give everything over to God, not just the bad stuff or the difficult things but everything… I expanded my morning prayers to include consciously listing off all the things I was grateful for, mentally listing off all the other people I was praying for both family, and friends. I sat quietly with my cup of coffee and Daisy talking to God and intentionally giving over everything and everyone that I was worried about, struggling with or was important to me. This not only included Andy, my daughters, mom, the management of the Airbnb, the running of the property, the health and well-being of my friends and their loved ones but it also included me and even my creative practice. Basically, I started to consciously and intentionally give absolutely everything I held dear to me over to God. Somewhere along this difficult journey I started to reflect on my life over the years and realized that through God’s grace and love, I always got through the rough times and in the end, life always ended up better than it was before; not through anything I did but because God was always there and never once ever let me down. God, just like the book emphasizes, everything single day, in every entry, is always with me, by my side, walking in front of me, protecting, or walking behind supporting me or just being with me when I need someone to lean on.
I am realizing these hard times are gifts, opportunities to learn and to grow, to become strong and resilient. They help me appreciate the many things both big and small that I took for granted. As I give more and more over to God, a sense of peace is starting to take root. I notice I feel lighter, and freer. Although I still feel constraints upon me, many of my own doing, I’m also learning to break free of them. I’m questioning my past approaches to things more often. When someone says to me that’s not how something is done, my internal response now is “who says?” Then I create a new path that works for me, for where I am now. I’m not sure where these paths will take me, and I’m sure I will stumble along the way, who wouldn’t but I know that God will be there to pick me back up and to continue to guide me. With God by my side, nothing is insurmountable; and so begins my new journey of giving everything over to God and watching how things will grow and evolve in ways I could never have imagined.
