“How was Tennessee?”
Over the last few years my wife and I have been through a rollercoaster of events. It challenged us to become better in many ways, but left us often lost for a path forward. We spent years fighting my wife’s health searching for a doctor who would have an actual path for us to follow and we finally got there with a specialist in Tennessee. Our first visit happened a few weeks ago and while it was enlightening, it also held a much deeper meaning to our journey.
Inevitably when going to Tennessee, many who supported us asked the question “how was Tennessee?”. My wife and I both discussed the true challenge of answering that question. Tennessee wasn’t just about getting to the right road for my wife’s health. It was about understanding the path we’d been taking this entire time. Everything changed in Tennessee, including how we had understood our journey.
All of this led to my wife working on a way to express all the emotions and challenges associated with her journey and suggest I do the same. She’s been a tremendous support in all my goals in the last few years despite her struggles. So I decided to begin this multi part blog in hopes of sharing our Journey and making others aware of her disease. Hopefully I can work through some of the challenges I’ve faced as a supporter of someone struggling with a rare disease.
Our Family Beginning
Honestly our road has been crazy from before we got married. We were good friends in high school, never dated, I even helped set her up with her long time boyfriend. Things kinda fell naturally into place later in life. I’d just returned home from Australia after serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I think it was the day after she invited me to go to a nature center with her, her mom and her sister. From that moment on we saw each other all the time. When I think back on it all I’m sure my own mother was jealous of how quickly I began dating my wife because I’d been away from home for two years. We were married five months later.
You may wonder why I started so far from the beginning of her health struggle, it would be years before her illness really began causing issues. We were 21 when we got married and, although I loved her dearly, in my heart I worried we might be moving too quickly. At the time I was mostly concerned with the idea I would one day look back and think I’d made the wrong choice, after all I didn’t intend on ever leaving her once we were married. As a religious man, and I imagine this is not unique to the Church of Jesus Christ, before popping the question I prayed about my decision. When I pray I don’t simply speak to God and go on about my life, I like to open the scriptures and read until I feel like God has a chance to speak to me. This was one of the few instances I felt God truly spoke to me.
I opened the scriptures and this was the first verse I read:
“But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife.”
Never had something appeared so clearly to me after a prayer. It took me aback so much I wondered why God would choose this moment to give me a clear answer. In that same moment the thought entered my mind that we would face many challenges together and this scripture, that moment, would give us strength in those challenges knowing God intended for us to face them together.
I didn’t intend for this to focus so much on a religious perspective, but as I’m looking back, I hate that I’m only now recalling that quiet moment of prayer. That moment of a powerful answer that always bewildered me. I hope those that are still reading see how this moment was almost a prologue to what we would face years later. I’m surprised myself writing this. I hope as I continue with these parts I can continue to discover these gems hidden within the challenges.
If you want to keep following me on this journey of the mind watch out for Part two!
Jacob Gittins 