Life Support: Lessons on How to Walk Through Life's Emotions.

Contents

The cover alone tells the whole story….

Forward

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

The cover alone tells the whole story….

Taken October 1, 2006, with a Canon Power Shot A610 camera at Madeira Beach, Florida, I first thought this was not a quality image, and planned to delete it. When I took the photo, I noticed that the lens of the camera was stuck half open. I fixed it, and went on taking pictures. I copied the picture onto my computer anyway, and then promptly forgot about it. I didn’t see the value of it then; it was just a picture gone wrong, and I didn’t know why I kept it.

When I started writing Life Support, I thought about what I wanted to use for a cover. Instantly, this picture came to mind. Only once did my camera shutter stick in all the years I have used it. After printing the image, I saw God’s hand in the way this picture came to be, and it holds deep meaning to me.

The bird represents you.

The two opposite black corners show the shutter covering the camera lens, which to me represent the trials and tribulations that are coming toward the bird. The waves coming in represent the next coming storm. The seaweed symbolizes the trials and tribulations you have already gone through. In the middle of the picture the bird is in smooth sand with a few small stones, symbolizing the mostly pleasant times in your life, with a few minor obstacles. There are no foot prints in the sand, because Jesus always carries you. The lighter shadow and the dark shadow are you and Jesus as He holds you. The position of the bird and the two shadows form a cross, the symbol of Christ. The picture represents life’s lessons.

Forward

I pastored a church for eighteen years in Largo, Florida. The community where I preached was 55 years or older, so you can see I had many funerals during those 18 years.

There was one scripture some preachers used quite often. That scripture states, The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away. The day came as it was appointed that my dear wife was to take up her residence in heaven.

When the doctor told her she had pancreatic cancer, that it was in-operable, and that she had but three months to live, she replied, Well, I will see JESUS before you. My wife was ready to meet her LORD, but her husband was not ready to let her go.

The church I now go to has experienced many deaths in the last year, so they started a Grief Support group to share with each other. The group was formed of persons who had a loved one go home. This group leader was Pastor Robert Reichert. When the Grief Support Class was finished, Vonnie Cavanaugh, whose husband was killed while riding his motorcycle, was asked to start the Life Support Class for the purpose of rebuilding our lives, touching on the different emotions we go through.

Vonnie has written this book just as she has lived it. She writes in a style that shows her heart is doing the talking, and touches the hearts of those who read it, and can compare like feelings. I would like to recommend this work to all, whether you have incurred a loss or not. I especially recommend it to new Christians, and to any one who wants to walk closer to the Lord.

Rev. Kenneth Lee Cummings

Retired Pastor

Acknowledgments

I want to thank God for putting in my heart the desire to write Life Support, and for giving me the strength, courage, and friends to constantly encourage me, and for all the provisions You gave me to make this book possible. I now know that when You ask us to do something for You, You will also meet every need it requires to complete the assignment. I’d also like to thank You, God, for all the things You have done for me in my life, and it is my privilege and honor to share what You have done for me with all who will read Life Support.

I want to thank, and dedicate Life Support to, Pastor Ken Cummings for his encouragement, support, and help with this book. Ken, you were the person who encouraged me to write Life Support, even though God had put His desire in my heart to write it many years ago. You were the person who stood behind me to see that it got done.

I also would like to thank Pastor Bill Wallingford, Pastor Robert Reichert, Jose Baca, John Dunkley, Evelyn Kouns, Karen Madison, Beverly O’Dell, Lynn Patt, Daffney Sauls, Darrel Simpson, Charlene Wise, and the Get-to-Gather girls for the encouragement, support, help and prayers that each of you has given me.

Introduction

Life Support is about walking through your emotions while walking through life’s trials and tribulations. In Life Support, I will share with you the many times I have walked deep down in the valley, only to look back and see God’s hand in it. There are some stories where you will see exactly what God did in my life, and where I walked in obedience with Him. Other stories will tell you what happens when you walk without Him, or disobey Him.

You will discover as you read Life Support how much God loves you, and how He never lets you walk alone. Your emotions make it hard to believe God is near, when your emotions and feelings are screaming that He is not. Life Support shows that you are not the only one going through those dark, lonely bottoms of the valley.

Life Support was created to help you to rebuild your life, and to walk closer to the Lord, while you are going through the many emotions you are faced with as you travel through the trials and days remaining in your life.

Life Support touches many things, mainly your heart. Life Support also gives you the opportunity to search your own heart, or to use for group discussion.

The reason for my writing Life Support is that God put it in my heart to share with others what He has done for me. He also put in my heart that if I wouldn’t share it, He would not and could not use me to help others who are going through what I have gone through. I knew that by not writing it, I would be disobedient to Him. It has been difficult for me to write, and share with you the trials and tribulations I went through, because I literally relived them as I wrote them. When God asks us to do something for Him, He will provide all that is needed to get it done. That is what He did for me, too.

Life Support is written the only way I know how to write, from my heart to yours. It also is written just the way life happened to me; the lessons that I have learned, I have tried to put into words so it may help you, too.

Hopefully, it will stir your heart to have your own Life Support Class. The questions at the end of each chapter, and the Bible Scriptures you are about to read, come from the Life Support Class which I teach in our church. All of the questions have been tested, and they work in an actual class setting. As you share, your class will share. Before each lesson, pray for God to guide you, and to take the lesson where He would like it to go. With God in your class, things get said and questions get asked that you may not have thought of. There will be times that you will chase many Rabbit trails, by getting off track of what the lesson is about. When this happens, the next written question gets you back on track.

It is my prayer that many Life Support Classes will start up all over the United States. I believe there is a great need for them.

Chapter 1

Aging and End of Life

In January of 1987, I went with my husband, Gary, to the doctor’s office, and I received the shock of a lifetime! That was the day the doctor told me my husband was very ill. Terminal kidney cancer, he said very softly to me. While listening in quiet silence, he went on to say, I can’t guarantee you will get him home alive. I can’t guarantee you will have him with you one more day!

Horrified, I looked at the doctor, then at my husband. I turned back to scream at the doctor, He’s not sick! He’s still working! Do something! Don’t just sit there! You are wrong! Gary got up from his chair and came over to where I was sitting to hold me in his arms. As he brushed the tears from my face with his hand, he softly said, Hon, we all have to go sometime. Buck up, you will have to be strong now. How could he be so calm? He wanted to go home. Of course he would come home. He was not going to stay at the hospital. I wanted him home with me. He wasn’t talking about our home, but God’s home. I didn’t understand.

We went from the doctor’s office to the place where Gary worked so he could tell his boss and his co-workers he wouldn’t be working anymore. There wasn’t a dry eye in the office, except for Gary’s. He didn’t cry. He knew long ago he was ill, and he had already accepted it. He kept it to himself, not telling anyone, which included me and his son.

After arriving home, I needed to be alone with my thoughts. I walked outside the house in a daze. Looking at my pitiful yellow rose bush through tears, I thought how short life was. Just like this rose bush. It was all dead except for one bright stem of green. I thought, It’s not fair. He’s too young. He’s only forty-eight. Why? I remembered how the two of us had carefully planted this rose bush so long ago.

With tears streaming down my face, I could barely see the big yellow bud on that one lonely stem. One bright spot in an ugly day! Two days later it was a beautiful yellow rose, without a blemish anywhere on it. After cutting the rose, putting it in a vase, and filling it with water, I set it on the table next to where Gary always sat, next to his favorite chair. Looking at Gary, he didn’t look sick. The doctor was wrong! But I knew I had to accept it. The doctor had shown me the X-rays.

For the next three weeks I pasted a smile on my face. I walked around as if nothing was wrong; telling no one my wonderful husband was leaving. I wondered how I was supposed to hold up for my son, Don, and not cry for Gary’s sake. He didn’t want any tears. Just remember I loved you, Gary said to me so tenderly that day. Each day during those three weeks I would go and look at the yellow rose. It, too, was three weeks old and still not one blemish appeared on it! I thought, Why can’t life be like that? I knew I had to do just what that rose was doing, keep on living.

Then Sunday morning came, and looking at Gary, my son and I knew Gary wouldn’t be here tomorrow. We knew by the way he looked that he was leaving us. I went outside, and for the first time in twenty years, I prayed. I prayed God would come, and put his arms around Gary, and take him home. Please don’t let him suffer, I whispered. I didn’t know until later that my son was saying the same prayer in the front yard.

God answered both our prayers late in the evening of February 9, 1987, three weeks after my only visit to the doctor’s office with Gary. Late that evening our home seemed to become so peaceful and warm, even though the house itself was cold. For some strange reason __ all of a sudden __ we didn’t feel alone. There was Someone else in the house. My son got up from his chair and said, We can go to bed now. That was strange, coming from my son. He had said earlier, We are going to stay up all night in case dad needs us. I went to check on Gary for what was to be the last time. I came back and told my son, I think he’s sleeping, but I’m not sure.

We called the fire station as we had been instructed to do. After opening the door to let them in, I asked them not to wake him if he was only sleeping. They came back and said, I’m sorry. He’s not sleeping. Later they all left, taking my whole life with them.

I looked at the yellow rose next to Gary’s empty chair. It was still a perfect yellow rose, without a blemish on it. I asked, How long are you going to live, rose? The bush you came from is already dead. The rose seemed to answer my question, You cut me off my dead rose bush and brought me into your home. I’m perfect without a blemish, even though my bush isn’t here. Just like God took your husband to His home, where he is now perfect, and without blemish.

That beautiful yellow rose was perfect for one more week. I then left for Minnesota. When I returned a week later, the yellow petals were lying on the table, and so was my life – made to start over.

As I looked at those yellow petals, what I saw was that my life was forever changed. I wondered, as I gazed at the broken yellow rose, what was going to happen to me. What was my life now? Start over with what? I’m all alone.

While I looked at the broken yellow petals lying on the table, I didn’t know then that I was going to become a believer in Christ. I didn’t know I would marry again, and my new husband’s name would be Garry. Same name, different spelling. I didn’t know then that Garry, my second husband, would be in a motorcycle accident and die also. I didn’t know about any of the things that were going to come into my life; however, God knew from the beginning of time just how my future was going to be.

God created each of us, and He chose where we would live, how long we live, and when we are appointed to die. We may not like His plans, but He is the one who created us in the first place. Even so, each of us has a responsibility, to God and to ourselves, to take care of our bodies to the best of our ability. The Bible tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Bible also teaches us that we are to love each other just as we love ourselves.

Now fast forward to 1989. I became a Christian, and then met Garry in 1991, and we married in July of 1993. Seventeen years later, Garry was killed in a motorcycle accident. Again, three weeks after hearing the bad news, Garry passed away. Having gone through Gary’s death, and knowing all that happened to me, I worried about what was going to happen to me, now that Garry had gone home to be with the Lord. Even now, being a Christian, I knew where I once had been! After going through Gary’s death, it was only me and my son, no one else. Now that God is in my life, I wonder how things are going to be different this time.

God was so good to me after Garry died. He gave me strength, and He kept putting in my heart that Garry is perfect, beautiful, and well. He is with Jesus, and he is just starting to have the best time of his life. It was brought to my heart so many times that there was nothing I could do but believe it.

At the memorial service for Garry, there were so many hugs from so many people, and each time, hugging them back was like giving away some of the pain I felt. God gave me so many friends and so much to do which comforted me. He was with me! It still is painful, and it hurts to not have Garry here. But I know where he is! I will someday be with both of them! We only say goodbye so we can come together again. That will be a glorious day!

I look back and compare how I was after each of their deaths. With Gary, a year later I was attempting to end my life. A year after Garry’s death I am teaching the Life Support class and writing this book. What a difference when God is with you!

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

—Hebrews 9:27-28

I started this book and this chapter with Aging and End of Life for a reason. While we are living on this earth, we only have so much time. We need to know what matters to God, and to ourselves. Take a look at your life. Decide what is important or not important. Think about where you are going with your life. Does what you’re doing really matter? Are you just coasting? Is your life glorifying God? God has given you things to do, but are you doing them? What you will do when God