When Mountains Fall

There are some things I don’t ever think about.

Like when I get groceries then stop on my way home to run 500 other errands and forget about the groceries.  And forget (probably because where I live it’s below 0 so many frickin days of the year) that it’s warm out and the milk might not last.  And the frozen’s are no longer.  I am constantly forgetting that.

But more importantly, I very rarely think through worse case scenarios.

Last week a friend of ours got the news that a family member was hurt in an accident that paralyzed him from the chest down.  He is still in ICU, but not expected to ever walk or move his hands again.

And I started thinking about what a TERRIBLE wife I would be if faced with something like that.  But I very quickly stopped thinking about it because, well, it’s kinda a crappy thing to think about.  So I focused on making them food (cause well, that’s what I do when I don’t know what to do). 

Then this morning I opened my blogger to this post by the Unlikely Wife.
And my heart stopped for a moment, like it does whenever I read something like that.
She called it the “Second Worse Nightmare“.

Twice in one week I was seeing someone facing the reality of their husband having suffered a catastrophic injury.

And I wrote her something that offers her nothing, because really, what can you write that would ease any of her hurts right now? 

Then I went about my day thinking – I might just be selfish enough that it would be my 1st Worst Nightmare.

Because I have never really thought of what the reality of a permanently severely disabled husband would look like.  I’ve sent him to war 3 times and I have prepared my heart each time that he might not come home at all.  As best you can prepare.  Which in reality, is hardly at all.

I have many time let my mind ‘go there’ to the ‘what if’ of him being killed in combat. 

I have never let my mind go through the reality of everything from transportation to home renovations that would be needed if my DH would become wheelchair bound.  I’ve never thought about bringing the kids to his hospital bed or standing next to him learning to walk again.  I’ve imagined the scenario of the men at my door telling me my husband will not be coming home.  I have never imagined them telling me he would be, but not all of him.

Why is it when I see the spouses of those soldiers who didn’t make it home my mind quickly pictures what it would be like to be in her shoes, but when I see the spouse of a wounded soldier it never occurs to me to do the same?

It’s could be because it is possibly the scariest reality I can think of as a wife, to see your strong, independent husband become completely dependant.  I can’t even begin to think of the hurt of seeing my soldier, who the strongest man I know, completely helpless and hurting.  In Psalm 46 it says “thought the earth give way and the mountains fall into the sea…”  I would imagine it would feel as though that was happening all around you. 

And so I can’t in any way to imagine what both those families are experiencing right now.

But I would like to encourage everyone to go to Kat’s blog and send her a note of support.

And then hug your spouse extra hard tonight.   

Psalm 46:1-2God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

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