It may sound strange to some but the recovery was just as hard as the illness.  


The pain my husband had was terrifying and we would never say that his recovery was harder than that, but the recovery was difficult in different ways that were as challenging as many other things we had been through.


There was a huge transition as he tried to find out who exactly he was.  With pain being the focus of his life for so many years, it seemed that Shae – the person – was lost in the midst.  


I had been doing many of his chores and taking care of most the responsibilities.  There were many things I didn’t know how to do that he always took care of, even when the pain was bad.  He kept the filters and oils clean in the home and motors, among other things.


Yet, as he began to recover, he realized just how much I was doing without him. 

With the dark mountain of pain in the past, the immediate future sometimes is not as bright as we thought it would be. (Zion National Park, Utah. February 2013)

We began to make the adjustments from me handling most things to him stepping up and taking over some of the responsibilities.


Many of those responsibilities are not just chores and taking care of the heavy things but are the emotional and spiritual responsibilities.


Shae had to figure out who he was in Christ first. Then, he had to figure out who he was as a person. Next came our relationship and then what kind of father he wanted to be.


He is still making changes and learning to lead as a loving, healthy, God fearing man.  I am also learning to adjust from having to be physically and emotionally strong as well as the primary parent and spiritual leader of the home to a supporting wife who will allow her husband to find his way not back to who he was but to who he is becoming.  I have to make myself step back and allow him to step up into his role as leader of our home.  It is a role I have no desire to fill but one that I most certainly desire to support and encourage.