Replacing Things | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Replacing Things | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ruby Harris
02/12/08
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES

A Few years ago, 7 to be exact, my husband had open heart surgery. He came through the surgery fine but began having trouble breathing. They put him back on the ventilator and told me he wouldn’t live through the night. He did survive through an amazing turn of events. But, after he went home, he went into a kind of depression that turned into major despair.

He couldn’t see a hope for any future and began to want to sell our home because he couldn’t see a way to continue to pay the mortgage. He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say and grew more determined to move and get away from there. What made this so terribly ironic was that it was his home place. He grew up there. His dad gave us some of the land and we bought more to add to it. We had a home, swimming pool, fruit trees, grape vines, azaleas and many roses and dogwood trees. We had deer in the yard on numerous occasions and had a great place for a garden, which was what he loved to do more than anything.

Everyday I came home from work and had to listen to his wanting to sell the house. One night I snapped when he told me he had talked to a realtor and wanted to get the house on the market. I threw all my clothes in the back of my Silverado truck with its bright red lid and left without a clue where I would go. I lived for about three weeks out of that truck just going in places to sleep and bathe. I was broken hearted to leave. We had been there for 24 years or better and many hours work had gone into that place we called home.

We finally sold the place and he wouldn’t leave. He stayed there for 3 months until the purchasers told him they wanted to get busy remodeling. He had told me repeatedly that I could have everything and all the money left after we paid off bills that we had agreed to pay. I had enough left to pay down on a small house that was only about three and a half miles from the place we sold. I got in touch with the owners and started to make plans to buy it.

The land around the house had grown up so bad. It was horrible. I missed all my clean yard and flowers and roses and fruit trees. I was getting into a state of mind that was making me angry. I wanted all those things back. One day God spoke to me and ask why I was so angry. He said, “Don’t you know that there is not one thing you left behind that can’t be replaced." I began to look around and found dogwood trees, crepe myrtles that I had never had but had really wanted, some daffodils, an apple tree and a grape vine and a walnut tree. I found plants all over the yard that I had been hunting to help bring in humming birds. I found box woods, lilies, azaleas, and even saw squirrels in the yard. I have a paved drive. I felt like I was home again and I have never felt safer in my life than in this little house.

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY FOR THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE

The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.