This is trauma. May/June of 2012 I almost lost my husband to a hemorrhage in his stomach. What had already been a difficult time at a missionary training facility, turned into a nightmare one afternoon. Jay had already been feeling crummy after taking typhoid immunity medication, but so had a couple other people. He spent one night regretting having eaten an entire hamburger at dinner, experiencing vomit-worthy reflux which kept him from sleeping. He was just as miserable the following day, only eating because our schedule demanded we eat at specific times. He assumed he would feel hungry eventually and didn’t want to miss an opportunity at the cafeteria. By lunch, though, sitting down to eat again was torture. He went to our room at the quad to lay down. Our second oldest was also feeling sick that day and needed to be picked up for having a fever. (Something our kids just traded around almost the entire time we lived in there.) He went and picked up Isabel and they both took a nap. A couple hours later I dropped off our other two children with him while I took a required computer class. I saw the strained look on his face when I brought the kids in, but he and I both knew I needed to take the class on computer encryption and that I had no option. I came back as quickly as I could and found him sitting on the toilet, and the kids up from their nap. I asked him what color his poop was and he said, “Green?” “Like yesterday?” I asked. “I guess?” came his short reply. “I’m sorry, just let me see it,” I demanded. “You think that’s green?” I asked, pointing at it to make him to look, “Is that the same color it was yesterday?” “Yes, I think so?” came his sheepish response. “Jay. That’s black. You are bleeding somewhere inside.” He just looked at me, expressionless. I told him I would be back in a minute and told him I was going to go find someone to ask them about him going to a doctor. What I was really doing was finding someone to take our kids so I could MAKE him go to the hospital. I was gone for a few minutes and came back to the room to hear a horrible retching sound. “Jay?!” I called, “What is THAT?!” referring to the sound. I ran to the bathroom and found him naked and on all fours in the bathtub, vomiting black chunks and liquid. It was filling the bottom of the bathtub. I ran out and asked some friends to make sure he didn’t pass out and aspirate while I found some medical help and get that friend I found to watch the kids. By the time I turned and ran back toward the quad, Jay’s babysitters were running out and telling me that they were calling 911. My heart dropped, thinking he had started vomiting fresh blood, but was later relieved to find nothing much had changed. He was still actively vomiting black, digested blood. Apparently that was what had been making his stomach feel so full and giving him reflux. Finally one of the nurses and medics showed up to evaluate the situation, and a few minutes later the paramedics showed up. Jay had stopped vomiting and I was busy cleaning him off and unclogging the drain. He hands, knees, face, and stomach were covered in what looked like water logged, black, soot and coffee grounds.
Jay’s face was gray. There was no line of distinction separating the hue of his lips from the rest of his face. By the time the paramedics had come, our small quad bathroom was full of people and Jay had kindly been given a washcloth to keep him decent. (That was a joke for a long time.) Since he had stopped vomiting, he was back to acting light hearted, albeit nude and colorless. He and I were loaded up into the ambulance and away we went. I had an amazing opportunity to share the Gospel with the ambulance driver after hearing how the Lord was wooing him. Later, I found out Jay was doing the same from the stretcher in the back as he witnessed to the other paramedic. I happily thought, “That’s exactly why we are going through this mess. Those guys needed to hear about Jesus’ love for them. (Now Jay will be fine andwe’llgettogohome.Amen.)” The trailing off of my conversation with myself is intentional. I didn’t know what still lay ahead.
Having gotten all that pressure off of his stomach, Jay felt amazingly better. He was scheduled for an endoscopy in the morning, I would go home to sleep, and return in the morning for his procedure. As I stood there and reviewed the plan with our coordinator, Jay called my name. I turned to look at him and saw sweat dripping from his beard and hair. “He’s going to vomit,” I said to myself as I swiftly grabbed the large gray trashcan from the wall. And he did. He vomited bright, red, fresh blood. Even as I type this, my eyes well with tears. “NO,” was the only thought or word I could muster and I left him there, holding his own cumbersome trashcan, as he emptied his life into it, one heave at a time.
Our coordinator had left the room to call for help and conveniently caught me as I ran out. She started to pray for me, boldly and bravely, when suddenly I realized that I had left Jay alone to hold his own trashcan and I panicked at the thought of him fainting. What I felt momentarily was guilt. What overcame me next was despair. There was no room for self examination. No time to think about how I looked to those coming and going from the room. In my mind, it was just God and me, and I was telling Him exactly what I thought. Out-loud and LOUD. “You can’t make me watch him die. You can’t! Please God, NO, you can’t make me watch him die!”
You will never hear me say that I can hear the voice of God. In some ways “voice” seems too normal, too small. No, what I heard was Him; the Holy Spirit, in all His simplicity and clarity, “What would you like Me to do?” Desperately I shouted my reply, “OH! Save him! Please save him!”
What happened next, I have only inadequate words to describe. The presence of God came and stood on my right side. His warmth seemed to touch me as He leaned in and whispered, “Am I enough for you, Lori? Or do you need him?” “Him” was my husband. “Him” was my most prized possession. “Him” was who I had put in the way of me leaning on and trusting my Savior. Peace flooded my heart, soul, and mind as I watched my husband continue to die. I had flipped from absolute, blinding desperation to holy sight! I reached for a paper towel, wiped blood and spit from my husband’s beard and calmly said, “This is a really bad color on you. Let’s do something else tonight.” Now knowing the presence of my Comforter, I comforted my husband.
Know this: The Lord didn’t promise to heal my husband. No, that peace came from the presence of God ALONE. He ALONE can do that to Not just for us, but TO us. Trying to put my husband second to God wasn’t something I could accomplish after years of trying, yet God accomplished it in an instant. Suddenly I knew, and will know forever, that no matter what happens in my life, the presence of God is enough. HE IS ENOUGH. By the grace and mercy of God, may no one ever come before Him ever again.
Jay got worse after that moment with the Lord. An emergency endoscopy was performed. The artery with a PIN-HOLE ulcer that had poked through his stomach lining was shot with epinephrine and clamped. He got worse. His blood tests showed he was still bleeding, somewhere, somehow. Crazy things happened and kept happening, but two days later, Jay got suddenly better and we suddenly went home to the training facility, our heads still spinning with what had happened. Jay didn’t remember most of it and even admitted forgetting it had even happened about a year later. I never forgot.
It ruined me. Not ruined me like a stain on a white cloth. Ruined like a wild horse when broken. It ruined me for my benefit so that I could be driven and directed by the Lord. It ruined me so that I wouldn’t single handedly ruin my marriage 5 months later, when I found myself in an unwanted pregnancy. It ruined me so that the Lord could take MY will and crush it, replacing it with HIS will so that I would be completely dependent on HIM and not my husband when we found out that unborn baby was very sick. When that pregnancy took us from the city we loved in North India to the lesser loved Delhi, I was so broken and humbled by the process that my husband was able to be furious, selfish, disappointed, and in turn broken, too. The Lord got me out of the way so He could do a good and holy work on my husband. My God loves him, too. I watched, prayed, and waited as this same God that loves us took everything from us. I hid in Him on our flight back to the US that would save our unborn child’s life. I finally knew what it was the Bible meant when it tells us to rest in Him. I became enveloped in His love for the next year and a half as He fought for our son’s life. I was guarded in Him as the Lord did a mighty work on my heartbroken husband.
I never knew all that the Lord would do through a stomach hemorrhage. The blessing that He placed on us as a family, that we would survive what lay ahead… how could I not trust Him for everything now? Lord, make me faithful. Keep me humble. I am a beast that has been broken, for my good and Your glory. Praise God.
Slow to Speak 