Seeking God's Face

“My heart said to You, Your face, Lord, will I seek” - Psalm 27:8


Our lives have become very quiet lately. We simply live to get through another day. We manage from hour to hour. In the stillness that has descended upon our days, we listen and can hear the sound of a new “melody of life” that fills the air in our home. It is the sweet strains of love uninterrupted.


It makes me realize how fast we were racing through life before all this. I have discovered, that in slow motion – love is the most beautiful. It all comes down to the simple things. Johnny and I make love in new and beautiful ways now.


It begins each morning as I reach down with my hands outstretched to give him something to hold on to and pull himself up from the pillow. He has to steady himself on the edge of the bed for a minute and I sit beside him. I gently put my arm around him and stroke his hair while he gets oriented. I give him a Dixie cup of water to wet his dry mouth.


He shuffles to the bathroom and back then splashes water on his face at the sink. He runs the brush over the wispy strands of hair left after the chemo. I take some lotion and rub his lower back to ease the ache of laying so long.


We travel down the stairs together with me leading the way and watching so he won’t fall. He drinks some water at the counter and waits for me to gather up his morning regimen of pills to start the day. I perk a pot of coffee and go get the newspaper. I bring it in and spread it out for him. He grabs the same two sections he has grabbed for 33 years – the front page and the sports section and heads for the bathroom.


I walk the dog and come back in to smooth out his couch bed. I’ve laid an egg crate over the couch pillows with a sheet on top. Then there are two pillows to prop his legs and one pillow under each arm. Then he reclines back on more pillows. He is truly floating in clouds of pillows. He needs all the softness he can get to cushion his bony structure.


The rest of the day is spent going back and forth between the couch and recliner. Mostly on the couch these last few days. He leaves the TV on but doesn’t really watch it. It gives him something to stare at when he’s not staring into space and clicking his fingers. It provides company as he naps. I “piddle” around the house giving him peace in the living room for long periods.


Johnny doesn’t talk much anymore. Its getting to be more and more of a strain to talk. Phone conversations wear him out. Visits tire him quickly. I miss the great debates we used to have about solving world problems and listening to his many monologues on Southern history or life back in Jackson County where he grew up.


I offer him food and water and medicine all day. He is not interested in eating. He hates pill time. He never did like to take pills. I bandage his boo boos. I file his nails. I read him his cards and letters. I help him take a shower. I help him get dressed. I pull on his socks and slippers for him. We pray together at bed time.


This is our new love language. It’s back to the basics of love. Its back to where it all started in the beginning. It is a beautiful friendship of two people who started with nothing and now have come back to nothing – NOTHING BUT LOVE. Love for each other. Love for our family. Love for our God.


Though we’ve had many ups and downs over the years we always bounced back to the love which kept us going. I think what bound us together for so long is our intense passion we shared for living life to the fullest. It lead to occasional clashes of egos, but in the end we were back to back, facing the world and always taking on new challenges together.


This is by far the greatest challenge we have faced but not the hardest. The hardest ones were those we tried to do without God being in the center. The most painful challenges were those that tested our hearts for each other. But by the grace of God we have always triumphed. Love trumps all.


So here is my advice for those who seek love that endures. Seek God first. I look back and realize we could have avoided a lot of unnecessary pain in life, if we had had the courage to get our priorities right early. If only I could have known that God and his instructions did not RESTRICT my life – it UNLEASHED my life, to realize the joy of maximized potential for everything.


Seek God’s face and you will discover a world filled with so much love that it absolutely spills over into every nook and cranny in your life and brightens every room you enter. Real love is contagious. It blesses all who encounter it. I hope you find it. It is that which we all seek but can only be found when we search the right place – the heart of God.


Beautiful Blessings,


Rene