The Journey Between Us: My Faith Walk: Overcoming Grief to Finding Joy in the Journey

Chapter 1

This Is God’s Story; I’m Just Writing It

How does one even begin to write a book about one’s life? What would even make someone want to write a book about oneself? I mean, couldn’t that be construed as a tad egotistical or conceited? Do people who write books about themselves just all of a sudden one day say, I am such an amazing, important person that I should really write a book about myself? Then again, aren’t we all amazing, important people? Of course we are, especially in the eyes of God—and probably our mothers. Not every amazing, important person in this world will write a book about himself or herself. Maybe writing is not his or her thing. It’s really not my thing either. It’s not that I can’t do it. It is just that I tend to get a little wordy and off subject and try to incorporate my sense of humor, which not everyone gets. And I probably do not follow all the rules of grammar and all that stuff I learned a long time ago in school. Plus I am a pretty busy person.

This may be jumping ahead a little in my story, but I have five kids, a husband, a part-time job, a big house to take care of, soccer, wrestling, football, cross country, volleyball, dance, boy scouts, girl scouts, piano lessons, music concerts, bunco, the gym, grocery shopping, mom-busing, salon appointments, etc. Aside from all that, I must factor in time for text messages, emails, Facebook, eBay, Zulily, and other online shopping because I need to know what is going on in the world. And my kids need clothes. And I maybe, sort of, kind of have an addiction. But that is irrelevant. Anyhoo, my point is that I am fairly busy with the daunting day-to-day tasks of just being me. But hey, I think I will write a book because I am an amazing, important person. At least that is what I am told by my mother.

Even though I am writing this story, it’s not really my story; it is God’s story. I am just placing the events that God has led me through into words. It’s easy to give Him the glory and praise for everything wonderful that has happened in my life, but what about the rough times? What about the tragedy? Well, I still give God the glory because if it were not for my faith, I might have never made it through the rough times. I am sure you have heard multiple versions of the saying God only gives you what you can handle. I don’t believe this. One reason I do not believe it is because it’s not from scripture. I also do not believe that God gives us our circumstances. I don’t believe that He makes things happen to us or allows things to happen to us. What I believe, and what scripture supports in multiple references, is that He promises never to leave us or forsake us, and He will always be with us to help us handle what we’ve been given.

Chapter 2

In the Beginning …

It makes sense to start with a little bit about my background.

I grew up in Healy, a very small town in western Kansas. I was born a Christian. What does that actually mean? No, it doesn’t mean that when I was born, the doctor held me up to my parents and announced, It’s a girl, and she’s a Christian! But wouldn’t that be convenient? To me, it means my parents were Christians, and we regularly attended and were very active in the Methodist church in Healy. I was baptized, was confirmed, and grew up attending church there. I went to Sunday school, Bible school, and youth group, and I even played the piano and organ for church service all through high school. I grew up learning about God, Jesus, the Bible, and prayer and automatically considered myself a Christian because that was what I was taught.

My Christian foundation was laid by my parents, other family members, and my church family. Although I didn’t love getting up for church every Sunday morning, it was expected, and it was our routine. Although not regularly at first, I even felt compelled to go to church during college because it just made me feel better about myself and my life.

So I don’t have a specific moment or time or event that led me to accept Jesus as my Savior, and for a while, I felt odd about that. As I got older, when I heard people share their testimonies about how they became Christians, I didn’t think my testimony was anything phenomenal. But friends, over the years I have learned that is far from the truth. Your testimony isn’t just about how you became a Christian and accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior. It is also about sharing the ways that God has molded you and shaped you as a Christian and your personal witness and account of the unending love that He has shown you and how it has deepened your spiritual walk and beliefs.

I loved being from a small town and attending a small school. I didn’t always love living a whole four miles out in the country because I often missed hanging out with friends, but country life did have its perks. It’s funny to me that as a kid I thought four miles out of town was excruciating. Now, as an adult living in the city, it’s ten miles from our house to the high school my kids attend. I never had more than ten kids in my class, and that was my graduating senior class, which had a foreign exchange student and a transfer from a neighboring town. So the core of my class from K to 12 hovered right around eight classmates. Yep, eight kids.

It’s hard for my kids to imagine, seeing as how they have hundreds of kids in their classes. I sometimes wish my kids could experience small-school and small-town life, but they are perfectly happy where we are. They don’t know any different. One major perk of going to a small-town school was that I always made the team, no matter what the sport. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon to have to recruit kids to go out for sports just so we could have a team. As far as girls’ sports were concerned, we had only volleyball, basketball, and track, and I loved all three. My high school sports career definitely made for a lot of wonderful memories—some of the best of my life. We were never state champions in any team sports, but we sure had some great seasons and a lot of fun. I was, however, a state champion in discus my junior year, which was a wonderful experience and a highlight of high school.

Playing sports was a big part of high school for me, but academics as well as music, drama, quiz bowl, student council, and homecoming queen made for a very well-rounded high school experience. I had multiple offers from colleges to play volleyball and basketball, but by the end of my senior year, I had determined that I was a bit burned out on sports and wanted to focus on my education. I had researched many careers my junior and senior years and knew that I wanted to do something in the medical field. I had received multiple scholarship offers from Fort Hays State and was intrigued by their radiology program. After visiting the school, as well as a few hospitals to tour their radiology departments, I knew that it was a career I would like to pursue. I was told that it was an intense program, but based on my grades and test scores, I could definitely be considered a candidate for the program even though it was uncommon for incoming freshmen to be accepted. First, I had to apply to the program and be selected for an interview.

A few weeks after I sent my application, I received a letter stating that I had been selected for an interview. I was excited but quite nervous. The interview would be conducted by a panel of about fifteen people. At first, I thought I would be intimidated, but for some reason, my attitude was that I had nothing to lose. I was going to attend Fort Hays regardless of whether I was accepted into the program, so if I didn’t get accepted as a freshman, I would just take whatever classes administrators recommended and apply again.

They must have liked me because I was indeed accepted into the program. I would graduate high school in May and start college in June. It was scary yet exciting!

So in June 1996, off I went to Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. I can honestly say that I had a blast in college. I was pretty straitlaced and not much of a partier in high school, so I definitely came out of my shell once I got to college. I wasn’t a wild child and didn’t get in any trouble, but I made a lot of wonderful friends, was involved on campus and in intramural sports, and did attend my fair share of parties. The radiology program did prove to be intense, so I had to be dedicated to studying and staying on track with my classes. High school came easily to me, and I didn’t have to study much at all, so this program was a good challenge.

Just three short years later, in 1999, I received my bachelor’s degree in medical diagnostic imaging. That is a fancy degree name for radiologic technologist, which is a fancy name for someone who takes x-rays. And again, I said technologist, not technician. That word drives me crazy (along with every other college-educated radiologic technologist). I started my career at Hays Medical Center, worked a variety of shifts, and gained a lot of valuable experience.

In November of 1999, I met the man who would become my husband. I met him at a bar, and he was wearing pajamas—Denver Broncos pajamas specifically. The bar was called The Home Party Club, and thankfully it was pajama night, so this wasn’t his normal going-out attire. My mom had always said I should go to church to meet a man, but apparently the bar has more options. It’s probably also not appropriate to wear your pajamas to church, not that it is totally appropriate to wear them to a bar either. Walmart is totally fine and socially accepted. But his Denver Broncos pajamas, as well as the fact that he was clearly confident enough to wear them to the bar, definitely caught my attention. The man’s name was Jason, and he was an accounting major working on his master’s degree. He was also on the Fort Hays State golf team.

What a great guy, almost too good to be true. I had not had the best luck with dating and relationships. I was pretty good at a lot of things, but dating was not one of them. In a high school the size of mine, you were either best friends with most of the guys or else related to them, so dating wasn’t an option. I did date a guy from another town in high school, but once I went to college, I knew I didn’t want to be tied down. I needed to be free to be me. I went on a few dates during college but nothing serious until Jason. It didn’t take long to know he was the one.

We were married November 17, 2001, and started our perfect little life together. I continued to work at the hospital, and Jason worked for an accounting firm in Hays.

In the summer of 2002 we found out we were expecting. Unfortunately, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at five weeks, and I was devastated. To date, this was the most difficult situation I had experienced. I found myself questioning what if we would not be able to have kids? I finally just had to remind myself that this was not in my hands. It was in God’s hand. All I could do was pray about it and have hope that some day we would indeed experience the joy of a child. Seven months later, I became pregnant again, and although I felt nervous, I was very excited and relieved.

We were blessed with our first child, a son, Jaren, in February of 2004. A little over a year later my mom happened to mention to me that one of the x-ray techs at the hospital in Scott City was leaving. The imaging director had approached my mom and asked if she thought I would be interested. She said she told them that I probably wouldn’t be interested, since we liked living in Hays. At first, I didn’t give it much consideration, but the more I thought about how important family was to me, especially now that we had a child, I decided that it might be a great opportunity. So, despite us both having jobs that we really loved, we made the decision to move closer to my family and start a new chapter of our lives.

Chapter 3

Moving Back Home

In the summer of 2005 we moved to Scott City. I took the job at the Scott County Hospital as the chief technologist of the radiology department. I had a lot more responsibility but also had the opportunity to broaden my skills in some new areas. I was excited that I would be working with one of my best friends and a department full of wonderful people.

At the time of our relocation, there were no accounting jobs available for Jason in Scott City, so he found a job at a firm in Garden City. This job would require a forty-minute commute, one way. Neither one of us really liked that he would have to commute, but it would be a good career opportunity for him, so he accepted it. He did really enjoy working there and did gain very valuable experience. Tax season was exceptionally brutal with extra hours both early in the morning and late at night, plus having the windshield time added in. I soon understood why accountant spouses are often called tax widows/widowers from January through April, and also why April 15 is a holiday in the accounting world. I honestly do not know how he did it, but he never complained.

We were both excited when he was contacted about a job opportunity in Scott City. He went to work at a small individually owned accounting firm. He absolutely loved the job, and the icing on the cake was that his boss loved golf as much as Jason did, so you can imagine where they spent a lot of time. I then learned what a golf widow was from April 15 through—well, as long as the weather cooperated and the courses were open.

We felt truly at home in Scott City and that it was where we were meant to be. We had become very involved in the Methodist church there. We attended Sunday school and church regularly. I had joined a new women’s Bible study group and convinced Jason to join the men’s study group. Those groups became a big part of our lives and really helped us both grow in our faith. Jason was never really very open about his faith; more of a quiet Christian I liked to call him. So you can imagine my surprise when on our way home from study one Wednesday night, he looked at me and said, I want to thank you for convincing me to join men’s Bible study. He proceeded to tell me how much he enjoyed the group, and if it were not for me in his life, he would not have grown so much in his faith. Looking back now, that was an important proclamation, which left no doubt in my mind that he had accepted the Lord as his Savior.

The summer of 2008, a new pastor took the pulpit at the church. Pastor Dennis was a wonderful pastor with a very interesting background. He had not been a pastor all that long. If I remember right, he had worked for a co-op in a small town before he felt called to ministry. He and his wife were each other’s second marriage. Despite their fifteen-year age difference (she was older), they fell in love and eventually married.

Once Pastor Dennis got somewhat settled in the church, he decided that he wanted to visit each of the Sunday school classes to get to know people. Ironically (you will soon see why), the Sunday he visited our class, we were sharing our personal testimonies. Jason and I both gave our testimonies that Sunday morning in the presence of our new pastor. Again, Jason credited me with being a big influence on his faith walk, which was a very nice compliment. And once again, it was verbalized that he not only believed in God but had accepted him as his Lord and Savior.

Not long after moving and feeling settled, we decided we were ready to add to our family. Our very first pregnancy back in 2002 ended in a miscarriage, and then it took another seven months before I became pregnant with Jaren. Although it was a bit discouraging, we did not consider that time frame to be anything out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, though, we spent the next two and a half years trying to conceive with no success. Talk about discouraging. Up to that point, I had never really struggled with anything as much as I struggled then with infertility.

Over the course of those two years, I prayed and prayed. My family prayed, my friends prayed, and my women’s Bible study prayed. I admit I was a little frustrated with God at this point and was having a hard time understanding why we were not having