I bet you’re wondering why I am a persistent widow mom. Well the widow and the mom parts I bet you’ve figured out and if not, that’s a story for another day. The persistent part I’ll tell you right now. So Google says that being persistent means continuing to do something despite difficulties or opposition. I have realized that persistence is quite engraved in my spirit ever since I can remember. The last few years my kid and I have weathered quite a few storms and it’s not like we’ve taken a stroll here. Not at all! But no matter what, I’ve persisted. I’m insisting and persisting.

I was somewhat happy and thrilled 2016 ended and 2017 began. Why? Good grief! Did you hear what happened to us? Let’s say our lives were someone’s piñata but then again, we’re no strangers to a challenge. My loving Beagle Zoe suddenly passed away in January. Somewhere around February or March a piece of metal ladder was picked up by the pick up truck in front of us and then landed on my windshield completely shattering it at 6 in the morning when I was on my way to drop off my kid at daycare. The day before I had the movers taking all our belongings into storage, the infamous hail of April made a horrible number on our transition house which we were selling along with completely destroying our very one and only vehicle from every angle. Of course insurance paid one for month of rental but I had to pay out-of-pocket for the other 2 months! One day at work I had a patient passing away under my watch for the first time, handling all the paperwork, dealing with all the arrangements that come after with the family members and all, got home exhausted after getting Samuel from daycare and the garage door broke down on me. Like broke down in half, all the way down to the floor. After a torrential rain that lasted over a week a tree in the backyard split and fell down and I had to find a guy on Memorial Day to take care of it before the tree broke the fence down. After the movers got all of our belongings into our new house, there was a flood. The movers didn’t connect the fridge correctly to the faucet on the wall and there was a fountain when I got home. Exactly at the same time, somehow Sam got some black thick grease on his shoes and he ran all over the house staining the new carpet that had just been installed a few months before and my mini-fridge’s motor burned up upstairs. I couldn’t file another claim so I paid out-of-pocket to dry and repair the flood just because it was cheaper and easier. My bank account was hacked on our second day in San Diego and we survived it with only $500 in cash the bank let me pull out from an ATM while a homeless woman kept rushing us and then I couldn’t use my credit card because the rental company maxed it out with the rental cars. Samuel got a bilateral ear infection with a strep throat infection. I switched jobs, my kid started kindergarten. I’m not sure if anything else happened.

Are you still there? Are you tired now? Well, Samuel and I are still here.

The Bible shows us in Luke chapter 18 about the Parable of the Persistent Widow. Jesus was teaching them to always pray and not to give up. So the widow kept coming back to the judge in town because she wanted justice done, and the judge was getting afraid of her because she was so persistent, asking for justice day and night. Well let me tell you something, I actually pray with Samuel in the morning and at night, and I pray everywhere in between. Why? Because I have to, I must. I need to pray because I know God will listen, because I need Him to know it’s important to me, because I need His help, because I don’t have anyone else to hold on to, because He’s my only chance to keep myself sane, because I know He’ll help me and show me the way, because He’ll give me the strength I so badly need to keep going! My family is 6 hours away driving, Richard’s family is 6 hours away flying, yes I have friends in town, but it’s not like I like to bother people. I just don’t, I’m not an asking type of person. So I need God to help me.

So what to do? You persist, you keep praying, and then pray some more. Then pray again. Keep your faith in God, God keeps you alive, doesn’t He? So He can solve your puzzles, sort out your problems, fix your difficulties, or at least make them bearable. Things are going to happen, that’s not going to change. Although I see people who seem to have nothing happening in their lives while Sam and I keep having a lot of happenings! Keep your eyes on Him and not on your circumstances. How do you think I’m still a happy person, or at least a sane person? Because I’ve kept my eyes on Jesus and both my knees on the ground. I’ve asked God for guidance and strength, and I go to bed, and I wake up, and I keep going. I am a persistent widow mom. I keep going and I don’t give up. Kid and I just keep going.

At the end of the day, it’s how you react or how you take the problem or difficulty. I know what happened to us in one year is nothing compared as losing your whole life in a storm or a flood or a hurricane or a tornado or a fire. I know it’s not as losing your whole family in a blink of an eye. I lost my husband, I know the pain that comes from losing your other half. It’s not about how much one has suffered or not, but then again, it’s how you take it and what you do about it! Yes, it was draining and exhausting, and sometimes I’m not sure how I got up every day at 4:30 am, got ready, got the dog ready, got the kid ready, left at 5:45 am to drop off kid at daycare at 6 am, went to work, worked a 12+ hour shift, drove to get the kid, drove to go home, got the dog in, got his dinner, got the kid in the shower, got him in bed, got the dog in bed, got everything ready for the next day, went to bed around 11 pm and back up at 4:30 in the morning. Being a one woman show, doing it all by myself, yes of course it’s been hard but I’ve persisted and I’ve kept praying and there have been so many prayers from a lot of people behind me. Now things have changed, God has answered our prayers, our lives are more calm and nothing we can’t handle has happened lately, but I keep persisting in praying for God to be with us every step of the day.

The way I see it, I have every reason to smoke or to drink or to pop pills or to possibly do drugs or to spend hours in therapy, but I haven’t given in or given up. Of course not! How could I? Do you know why? Because no matter what happens, it’s how I’ve chosen to deal with it all, and how much I’ve prayed about it and how many times I’ve told God how grateful I am at the end of the day to be with my kid and my dog under the same roof, to have food on our table and a car to go around and go to church on Sundays. You know I’m so blessed that God shows me every day that I should keep my eyes on Him and only Him, because when everything seems to fall apart, when we’re in the middle of the storm, when we’re in the eye of the tornado, I get down on my knees and I pray and I insist and I persist until I know He has heard me.

So you should keep praying, and insisting, and persisting, and then you keep going.

Laura