Meet My Friends Saidy and Rob

I love to hear individual stories of how God's mercy triumphs over misery. Rob and Saidy showed up in our lives a year ago. They are an eager, young couple passionate about there faith and service to the Lord. Their journey through affliction has been an encouragement to me as I watch them put their faith, hope and trust in our heavenly Father who has given them a precious gift, salvation, hope and eternity. Continue reading and you will be blessed!

 Seeing Suffering as a blessing?

I have been reflecting on the Lord's blessings over Rob's and my marriage over the past year as we approach our 1 year anniversary. I couldn't help but share my thoughts on a particular blessing...

"What if Your healing comes through tears?
 What if a thousand sleepless nights
 are what it takes to know You’re near
? What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?"

Those words became so real to me when I first heard them on the radio. I was driving home from dropping Rob off at work. Rob wasn't able to drive at the time. His doctor recommended he didn't. Not for 9 months...our first 9 months of marriage actually. I kept asking myself, why?

I didn't think this was the way a marriage was supposed to start, it wasn't the way I had dreamed it to be.

My dreams about marriage didn't include sleepless nights, tears, constantly crying out to God for healing, for strength, crying out to him in anger because I couldn't feel him near...that's not what I had imagined.

It wasn't what I had planned.

God taught me during that, that my fantasy or dream wasn't the Lord's reality for my life. He instead wanted to refine my faith, strengthen it, and unite Rob and I right from the start. Rob and I had a long distance relationship the whole time up until we finally got married. God's plan was perfect. Mercies in disguise. It was the "revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy"...."BLESSINGS" was the song that kept taking me back to God's Word during that time. (see lyrics by Laura Story, and song below)

Rob was diagnosed with partial complex seizures a few months before we were married. These came as a consequence of having had two long seizures when he was a baby. The seizures beat a path through his hippocampus, and the seizures found their way back when Rob went through some intense stress in college. (We didn't come to this diagnosis easy, we searched high and low for a neurologist that would be able to diagnose Rob, and it was only by the Lord's leading that we came across the doctor that we did. I would also like to thank our friend Mert who has MS and helped steer us in the right direction. It is no coincidence that they are our friends (check out her blog: Connecting the Dots). The goal after that was to find medication that would suppress them.

It was such a painful journey for me, ( I can only begin to imagine how painful it was for Rob). All I could do while he was having a seizure was hold his hand as his face would turn white and his lips purple, he wasn't able to talk or know what was going on, and then he'd sleep. He would need to sleep for about 30 minutes after each seizure. I would hurt to hear how bad he felt that he couldn't drive, that he couldn't perform his job as well as he could if he didn't always have these seizures. I couldn't help him. Only God could. The seizures were unpredictable. Here is a glimpse into one of my desperate cries to the Lord as I prayed Psalm 17, 18 and 22 one sleepless night:

"Lord you are my rock, my refuge, my shield. Oh hear my cry! For you are the Doctor, the King of kings. I trust in you, I trust your sovereignty. Oh Lord hear my cry! Listen to the hurt in my heart, to my fears and insecurities. I pray you bring healing to Rob. Help us in finding what's wrong, and help us find a way to stop the seizures. Hold him in the shadow of your wings. Help us understand these seizures and why he's having them. Give ear to my prayer oh my God, my almighty Savior! I hurt inside for my beloved everytime there is one. He wants to provide, he wants to serve you. I pray you bring healing upon him." (taken from my prayer journal, August 10 2011).

I wanted so bad to be able to help him. God taught me the meaning of "pray without ceasing" (1 Thes 5:17) early on in our marriage. To pray for my husband, not just for physical things, but also for spiritual things. God showed me that I needed to strengthen my faith, because I doubted His goodness (Psalm 31:19), His love (Psalm 63:3), and His sovereignty (Dan 4:35). God taught me that I gain nothing with worrying or being anxious. He taught me this through many sleepless nights, through many "raindrops", through so many tears, through so many angry and desperate prayers, through many "mercies in disguise". And He continues to teach me today in different ways, because I tend to forget.

This was also a time of blessing for our marriage. Since Rob couldn't drive, I drove him anywhere and everywhere. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time together. God really used that time to unite us, being that we had spent most of our courtship and engagement cross-country.

Praise God, He has controlled Rob's seizures and has suppressed them with medication for about 6 months now. He is now driving, yet we go almost everywhere we can together still. We got so used to that. Yes, I'm thankful Rob's seizures are suppressed, I am also thankful though for that trial we went through because I can now look back and see clearly what I learned while going through that.  We are so thankful to see God's goodness, love, and nearness. We still hang on by our prayers. I pray everyday that Rob won't have a seizure. I pray everyday that God would use my husband and the testimony He has built into our lives of God's goodness. If I could start my marriage over again from day one, I wouldn't change a thing. I needed that. God knew I did. .... And this is how we see this suffering as a true blessing, a blessing in disguise.