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    How Sweet the Bitter Fruit: Revealing the Hidden Beauty Behind Human Suffering
    How Sweet the Bitter Fruit: Revealing the Hidden Beauty Behind Human Suffering
    How Sweet the Bitter Fruit: Revealing the Hidden Beauty Behind Human Suffering
    Ebook140 pages2 hours

    How Sweet the Bitter Fruit: Revealing the Hidden Beauty Behind Human Suffering

    By Anne Breheney

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    About this ebook

    Is there a God?
    Does He love us?
    Is it possible to ask questions of Him and get answers?
    Can our sufferings actually become the greatest gift imaginable?
    Can true beauty really come from the ugliness of human pain?
    These questions and more are answered in this personal account of God's intervention in one particular family's life.
    Through overwhelming personal tragedy and anguish, the writer came to know God and developed an intimate relationship with Him. When others in similar circumstances might have turned against God and blamed Him for their trials, she turned to Him for help and solace instead, and He lovingly responded to her each and every prayer.
    While this is the true story of one womans conversion, it is so much more. It is a story of brokenness, and healing, of darkness and light. But most of all, it is a story of Gods unfathomable love for every human being and His unmistakable desire to walk beside us through every sorrow, holding us up when we can no longer stand ourselves.
    It must be read, not only by people who are suffering difficult trials or personal tragedies, but by every person who seeks to know the true meaning of life.

    Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they find rest in You. St Augustine.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateJun 24, 2013
    ISBN9781481766968
    How Sweet the Bitter Fruit: Revealing the Hidden Beauty Behind Human Suffering
    Author

    Anne Breheney

    Anna Breheney was born in 1967 in Greece and migrated to Australia with her parents the following year. She has been involved with several outreach programs at parish level, running the local Catholic Girls Club, editing Catholic publications and public speaking on matters of faith. Her personal interests are writing, literature, spirituality and enjoying movies with family and friends. She now lives in Melbourne with her four children and home-schools the youngest two. More than anything she wants to bring the love and mercy of God to a world that needs it so much.

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      Book preview

      How Sweet the Bitter Fruit - Anne Breheney

      Chapter 1

      It’s not that I want to write about this, or even recall it, for the memories lie deep in my heart, like mud on the bottom of a river. Remembering is like stirring the mud with a stick, so it clouds my life once again. Yet I am compelled to write and remember, remember and write, in the hope my experience will help another person—and this will make it all worthwhile.

      It began in the darkness of that summer night in February of 1998—so much worse than a nightmare in that it was real. The unfamiliar noise penetrated my world of dreams and half asleep, I turned instinctively towards its origin. It was my husband snoring, but something was different. Unlike his usual gentle, unobtrusive snoring, this was loud and rough and increasing in intensity.

      I gave him a little shove, which was usually enough to make him turn over and stop. But his body was rigid beneath my hand. He was on his side in the fetal position and he wouldn’t move.

      John, I whispered, sitting up and gently shaking his shoulder, John.

      There was no response.

      As I watched him, my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the room, a fear entered me. There was something very wrong here. Suddenly, his body straightened stiffly and he began to jerk backwards, banging his head against the bed head. The snoring continued, turning into loud snorts that were synchronized with each jerk.

      I sprung into action, cupping the back of his head with one hand to protect it from the wood, and with my other arm, trying to pull his body further down. The whole bed shook with every powerful jerk as I hovered over him, completely unknowing of what I could or should do next.

      John! I yelled, vaguely conscious of waking the kids, yet unable to contain the monster panic which had intruded like a coldness into my soul.

      My memory flashed back to a time long ago when I had seen an epileptic seizure and this looked awfully similar. Could it be that my husband, who hadn’t taken a sick day in twelve years, and was rated in the top two per cent of the population of Australia health-wise by our medical insurance company, was having an epileptic seizure?

      I was numb inside, not even able to live out my panic, so occupied was I with trying to hold him in a way he wouldn’t hurt himself. After some moments, he quietened. The power behind the jerks mellowed as they finally slowed to a stop, the snorting subsiding along with them. So peaceful now, as though he were just asleep, I felt suddenly a bit silly lying half on top of him.

      The words, I’m calling 000, spilled loudly from my mouth into the dream-like atmosphere of the room, as I cautiously removed my arms from around him. I half expected him to snap out of it and tell me not to be silly, but he didn’t say a word.

      There was a strange silence in the bedroom. As I stared into John’s face, his eyes flung suddenly open, making me gasp and jump backwards. I stared into them. Only a thin rim of blue encircled the hugely dilated pupils, making it appear as though his eyes were black. An eerie look, it was, and it made me shudder, imagining for a split second that he was dead.

      I bolted into the kitchen, grabbed the hands free phone and dialed the emergency number as I ran back to his side. With the ambulance on the way, I phoned Mum and Dad. It was 4.30am by now and it seemed like forever before Mum’s sleepy voice answered.

      The ambulance is coming to take John to the hospital, I blurted. "I don’t know what’s wrong with him… he’s had some sort of seizure. Please get Dad and come—right now."

      A tortured moan escaped Mum’s lips. I felt awful having to tell her something like this with such lack of compassion, but I didn’t know how else I could have done it under the circumstances. I hung up the phone and casting nervous, sideward glances at John, I quickly dressed.

      As I hastily pulled on my clothes, I had to stop for a moment and brace myself against the wall. A wave of nausea began in my stomach and worked swiftly towards my throat. I could feel a body of the coldest black enveloping me. From somewhere very far away, I heard my own heart beating and the sound of blood rushing through my veins. Little black dots started to appear before my eyes, growing and moving into bigger blotches, like cells multiplying. It was tempting to give in to it, to let it take me to a place away from here—but I took a deep breath and shaking off the dizziness, I ordered myself not to faint.

      I turned to stare at the stranger in my bed as he stared back through me. It was then, I felt something strange—a foreign feeling poking loudly and persistently through my fear. It was an intriguing feeling of expectation. I felt as though I was standing at the beginning of a journey and that there was some sort of meaning behind what was happening here, even though it was yet to be revealed.

      Chapter 2

      As I returned to the bedside, I became aware that John’s eyes were now looking at me, following my movement.

      Relief flooded my heart. I spoke his name again and he opened his mouth to respond, but a series of foreign sounds came out; a mumbling of words, one blending into the other, completely unintelligible. It reminded me of how disabled people spoke. The short-lived relief was gone and my heart pounded with fear once again. What was wrong with him? Was he brain damaged? How I longed for this not to be happening.

      The ambulance is on its way, I spoke clearly and carefully.

      What for? he slurred.

      Oh, thank God! A response—a sign he was alright, that he understood me and saw me.

      I sat beside him and took his hand.

      Are you okay? I asked, looking deeply and searchingly into his eyes.

      Yeah.

      I think you’ve had a seizure. The ambulance is coming.

      A seizure? Me? his words were slow, as if he was drunk.

      I nodded, Don’t you remember?

      He stared off into space, a dreamy, confused look on his face.

      I had opened the front door, ready for the ambulance officers and I heard the large vehicle pull up outside our house on the street. I jumped up and ran outside to meet them. The pinkness of dawn was here. The street was silent and surreal, lonely and unfamiliar. I allowed myself a quick luxury of imagining this was just a dream.

      Quick! I spoke, barely holding myself back from pulling one of them in by the arm, I think my husband has had some sort of seizure, I repeated what I knew they already knew, he’s acting very strange.

      They smiled sympathetically and entered the house in a calm and collected manner. I wondered how they could be so calm at a time like this. They conducted what appeared to be a routine check up—blood pressure, torch in the eyes, reflex test, and then they asked some questions.

      Do you know what year it is?

      John stared into space for a moment. No, he eventually said, looking surprised with himself.

      Do you know your address?

      He hesitated, thinking hard, I don’t know.

      Do you know what day it is?

      No.

      A stab of panic in my stomach and I blurted out, Don’t you remember? It’s Saturday night. Tomorrow we’re having your boss over for lunch. You’ve just spent the whole day in the garden making sure it all looks perfect for him. We bought lots of meat for the barbeque. Don’t you remember?

      The ambulance officer smiled kindly at me. John just looked at me blankly as the officer continued his questions.

      Who’s that? he asked John, pointing at me with his pen.

      That’s my wife, John said, casually, his speech having returned to almost normal now.

      What’s her name?

      Anna.

      A small amount of relief washed away some of my tension and I jokingly shook my finger at him. "You are so lucky you remembered who I am," I said and we all had a little laugh. It momentarily broke the thick tension in the room.

      The ambulance officers told me it was very likely John had had a seizure, that they couldn’t be certain why and the best thing was to get John to the hospital for proper assessment.

      Sorry to get you fellas out here so late, John apologized as the officers mounted him onto the stretcher and wheeled him out to the ambulance. That was John—ever polite, ever concerned about other people.

      Chapter 3

      The emergency ward was teeming with people. Medical staff buzzed around like ants on a mission. Patients lay in beds, some calm, some in a state of pain. One man groaned loudly as doctors and nurses continually walked past him, seemingly unaware of his presence there. The lady in the bed beside us tried to make her doctor understand what she was feeling as he rubbed an agitated hand over his forehead.

      Then there was John, sitting up in his bed waiting for a doctor to examine him. Completely back to his normal self now, he looked around as though wondering what he was doing here. He couldn’t remember a thing, so he had not suffered any mental anguish. I, on the other hand, was quite tense and traumatized, sick with worry.

      Would you like a sandwich and a cup of tea, sir? a young lady with a trolley asked.

      That’d be great, thanks, he replied with a smile.

      I stared at him in amazement. How could he think of food at a time like this? I felt like I would never be able to eat again. But that was John—he could never say ‘no’ to food.

      My mind went back to our wedding day, eight years ago. That was the only time I had known him not to be able to eat—in the moments before he had to deliver his speech. I remembered the carefree, happy love we felt back then. A love completely untouched and unknowing of any true hardship; a love which we had allowed, over these past years, to be covered with a blanket of concerns.

      Our lives had become mundane, predictable. Our focus had shifted from each other, to anything but each other. In giving our attention to either work or the kids or the house renovation, we became selfish and self centered. But that love we had back then, I assumed it was still there, warm

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