I cannot ever remember a time when it was this hard to find words to write. My exhaustion is deep from the past two weeks and my eyes leak a lot. But I need to share with you the passing of my sweet husband, John.  His long, long battle with Frontotemporal Dementia and Aphasia is over. He has won the victory and he is with His Lord and Savior, Yeshua, whom He treasured above all else!

About a week before his passing his heart went into A-Fib and he became very short of breath, losing what little cognition he had left. It was a grueling week of 24/7 caregiving, as he became very weak in his legs and could not walk. I tried to help him use a walker but his brain did not understand what to do with it so he didn't know how to move his feet.  The LORD intervened and made a way for my beloved John to be transferred to inpatient hospice. I feel certain that none of the employees at Pathways Inpatient Care in Fort Collins are humans; surely they all must be angels! They tended to John so gently and lovingly, and blessed me with kindness also. I had a small sofa bed in his room, but I stayed up most of the days and nights, keeping vigil, reading Scripture to him, and singing over him.  He was only there for four days. On November 19th in the morning I was having a little breakfast at a small table in his room when I felt an urgent prompting to move quickly to John's side and take his hand. I wanted so desperately to be holding his hand when he left this earth! 

John had been "seeing" my dad at the window for a few previous months. He and my dad had an unusually close and loving relationship. I knew he received a love from my father that he never got from his own. So, as I gently took John's hand in mine I whispered in his ear, "I will always love you. Thank you for being such a faithful, kind, and wonderful husband to me. Give my mom and my dad a hug for me!" And he breathed his last breath and was gone. Precious and holy in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. (Psalm 116:15)

It was so very peaceful, after such a long struggle. My heart is overflowing with thanksgiving on this Thanksgiving Day for my beloved is free, with a mind that is whole and sound, and I cannot even begin to imagine his immense JOY as he worships His Lord face to face!

I too feel joy and release. I was deeply privileged to care for this man of God for eleven years (since his diagnosis). But now I am free to leave the confines of this house, go wherever the Lord chooses to send me, and seek out whatever new calling He has for me. Through Marsha Burns and her daily words from the Lord, He spoke this straight to my heart:
November 27, 2024: You are entering a season of new beginnings. Things may not be according to what you have imagined, but it will be a time of spiritual growth and development like none other. It will be as though you are looking through a different lens where your life will take on new meaning, and you will never be the same again. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

May it be unto me according to Your Word, Lord!  Oh, how I desire to grow in You and to look through a new lens!  I give You unending praise and thanks for bringing John safely home and for allowing me a season of new beginnings.

Thank you, dearest friends, for continuing to journey with me, and to pray for me.  I appreciate you all so much! I hope you will enjoy the memorial website I created for John. The link is below. 
https://everloved.com/life-of/john-lee-mills/

My friends,
It has been so hard to write. Emotions clog the writer's flow. I breathed a collective sigh along with millions of other Americans when the Election was over.  I felt like our benevolent Father once again showered us with undeserved mercy. And I am finding myself praying even MORE now, because I know this was not just a "free hand-out." It was a gift of love and mercy that requires our response of repentance and RETURNING THE HEARTS OF OUR NATION TO HIM.  Yes, much change is needed in America, but not just in the government. Change is needed in our hearts. 

I pulled this excerpt out from an article by Max Obeidin:
The most important thing we need to pray for during a second Trump term is that people would come to know Jesus who do not yet know Him and that those who do know Him would come to know Him more deeply, in combination with repentant hearts. Trump cannot save America, but Jesus can! The more our nation responds to Jesus in repentance and true commitment to Him and His Word, the more God’s mercy will be on the nation. God is calling our nation to repentance from both individual and national sins, and without repentance we will continue seeing much disruption in our country. But with repentance, many of the challenges we would otherwise see during the next four years can be prevented or at least reduced. God is responding to our prayers and intercessions with a window of mercy right now. However, to truly change the nation for the good and see the best outcome, we must have repentance.
I agree and I hope to discipline myself to "sh'ma" (hear and obey) Max's words. 

Mostly right now I'm feeling a deep, heavy sadness as I face the probability of soon losing both husband and very dear friend. John sat across from me at our dining room table last night and he suddenly looked straight at me and said, "Where do you live?" These kind of moments take all the blinders off and one has to squarely face the decline and the loss and find ways to answer the questions with gentleness and grace.  Mostly he repeats one question over and over, both daytime and nighttime: "Are you ready? I have to go home." He asks it expecting that I will fetch the car keys and his jacket and my shoes and be ready right now to take him "home." 

For many months last spring and summer I truly DID fetch the car keys and took him for a ride, but never able to take him "home."  How frustrated and sometimes downright upset he gets when I'm unable to take him to this place he calls home.  I've read articles and stories now on the internet and it appears that this is a rather common phenomenon with people who have Dementia and/or people who are terminally ill and sensing that "it's time to go home."  Oh, how I wish I could take him! How I wish I didn't have to keep disappointing him by driving him back to this little yellow house instead of up to the GLORY OF HEAVEN! But Jesus alone provides that transportation.

We got our first snow in Colorado today. The big white flakes fell all day long and I cringed to think about the coming winter. John gets sooo cold in winter!  

But I can consider it pure joy that he is still at the dining room table with me, and that the snow brought needed moisture to our dry ground, and that wicked people were not allowed to continue to rule over our country. My heart swells with joy when I think about my new little great-grandson who bounced on my knee at family dinner last Sunday and made lots of wondrous little baby sounds! My cup runs over as I thank my God for THREE wonderful reports from doctors' exams this past week. One friend had a test for breast cancer and the report was BENIGN! One friend thought she had stage 4 lung cancer and tests came back stage 1 with surgery possible! And my own sister, who had a nodule on her lung, called to say "IT'S NOTHING!"  All the bad reports came to nothing. 

As the popular praise song goes, "HIS GOODNESS IS RUNNING AFTER, RUNNING AFTER ME!"