The Tear Catcher: Written by Lynn Mackenzie

# 3

Tragedy

I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was my 41^st birthday that Sunday and we spent the weekend at my mom’s. Bruce, my husband wasn’t feeling well and I recall that he had to get up in the middle of the night and sleep downstairs on the recliner. That weekend he complained of pain in his back and being unusually tired. Bruce had been under a LOT of stress and I had to wonder if these stress’s were starting to affect him physically.

My 41^st birthday came and went. Even though Bruce had a full physical only 3 weeks prior, the next day, Bruce went back to his physician to see why he was short of breath and having pain in his back. A major discovery was found with a simple chest x-ray.

Bruce called me at school and told me that something was wrong. The chest x-ray revealed that his right chest cavity was all white. It was called a pleural effusion.

“What was that?”, I asked.

“They said that the wall between the lung and the chest cavity was filled with fluid.”

“What kind of fluid was it? Was it bad? Was it a form of pneumonia?”

Pneumonia was what I was hoping for. After all, that would be a quick fix, I thought.

What was happening? My husband was healthy, well liked, had a good job, and was active in the community and in our church. How could something that appeared to be so bad be happening to my other half, to my spouse? No one knows the pain a spouse feels until they are in a situation like this.

One flesh. Somehow that had taken on a new meaning. I now understood what the bible verse in Matthew was saying. When Bruce hurt, I hurt. The pain gnawed at me and I ached in the depths of places I didn’t even know existed.

My faith was being tested and stretched in a way that felt like growing pains. I needed to trust God and believe that he heard my cries. My faith needed to be strong.

 

I cried out in prayer “Why is this happening to us God? Why now? Do you even hear me? My heart aches. Can you feel my pain God? Please answer me, I can’t hear you. Where are you?”

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

– Matt. 19:5