Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: 24 Hours (01/27/11)
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TITLE: The Journal Entries of Layne Kimberly | Previous Challenge Entry
By Amanda Brogan
02/02/11 -
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It’s amazing the rigid mark that one day can etch into a person’s life. What a difference those twenty-four short hours can make in the days, months, even years to come. The effect they can have on every waking minute afterward.
Even now, sitting in a bleak hospital room watching my darling sleep beneath crisp sheets, I am unable to erase the burning image from my mind of the day this strange journey began. The day when we knew we couldn’t ignore Joy’s pain any longer, when we instinctively sensed that she had more than a simple flu. Those fateful hours with all those tests that seemed to last the entire day. And then came the doctor’s downcast diagnosis.
But why am I rambling on about all this? The former pages of this journal contain the whole story.
12/31/10, 10:06 a.m.
Joy has fallen asleep again after a 9:30 breakfast of yogurt and half of a small banana (which I finished). My poor, sweet Joy. So unlike her normal energetic, fun-loving self. Putting my heart in a blender could not wound it much more than seeing her in this condition. Her lively energy gone. Her delicate head barely able to lift from its resting place for more than a few seconds.
Of course, I always encourage her just to rest. She’s spent plenty of mornings waking at six and utilizing every hour the rest of the day, peacefully and contentedly going about the seemingly menial tasks of maintaining a household.
How I’ve loved those many mornings, waking to see her shining face bowed over her favorite study Bible, the rising sun bursting through our bedroom window and illuminating her soft auburn hair. Those mornings of reading and prayer shape her entire day. She has never complained about washing my dirty shirts or scrubbing the kitchen floor to a spotless shine. Yes baby, you deserve your rest now. You’ve earned it.
12/31/10, 3:27 p.m.
I can’t seem to stay away from this journal. These pages and those of my Bible are my closest companions lately. Except for the times when Joy is awake. Then I encompass her frail hand in my own and we talk and pray until she is too exhausted to talk anymore. Then I read to her from Scripture until she drifts off again. Usually I read from Psalms or some of her favorite New Testament passages.
On my own, however, I’ve been reading the account of King David. I’m not sure what it is that draws me to his story. Maybe it’s his steadfast dependence on the Lord, the way he clung to God as to a rock whenever the quicksand and mire of rough circumstances threatened to drag him to his grave. I can’t help but wonder if David’s first son by Bathsheba in II Samuel 12 died of leukemia. If it did, then I may have more in common with David than I thought. I also wonder if God is punishing me like He did David. Would He take my precious wife, my wife of whom this earth is not worthy, in order to cleanse me of some sin and make me a better servant?
But then, as if a gentle, supernatural hand were laid on my shoulder, I feel my Savior comforting me and reminding me that sometimes it’s nobody’s fault. Maybe this is just part of a heavenly refining process that will bring us out stronger on the other side. Oh Lord, make me like David that I may trust and love You more by leaning on You through my struggles!
12/31/10, 10:42 p.m.
My dear Joy. Always thinking of others. Always strong even in her weakness. I broke down earlier and told her that maybe I haven’t done enough, maybe I haven’t prayed as hard as I should.
“Layne,” she said, “God is always good. Even when we don’t understand His plans, He is always good.”
01/01/11, 6:00 a.m.
I woke up to see the sun shining on her face more brightly than ever before. I know it is because she has risen before me into the presence of the Son. I have faith beyond a doubt that she was right. God is good for the five years He gave us. He is good for having brought her into my life to teach me to love Him more.
Nothing can erase the mark that you left on my life, Joy Kimberly. These last twenty-four hours have taught me that.
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Well done.
Nice job with the emotions, too!