The first thing to enter her mind as the veil of sleep lifts is her recent diagnosis. She looks down at the book in her lap and remains cradled in the easy chair. She runs her fingers over the book cover—treasuring how it feels in her hands. She lets her fingers linger over the spine and thumbs through a few pages. She loves books but knows her time to enjoy them is limited. The doctors had told her the disease and the treatment would begin to diminish her mental faculties, making sustained thought more difficult.
She looks down and notices the blanket covering her legs, which was not there before she fell asleep. Her husband must have done it without her noticing. She looks at the clock, which she had read countless times, with fondness. It reads 7:13 PM. She remembers they had decided to save dessert until later.
Her husband loves apple pie, and she takes pleasure in baking them for him. It has become a Sunday evening tradition. She’d been too tired to bake one this week, so she was thankful that her friend from church had dropped one off earlier in the day.
She loves her husband and desires to serve him with the time she has left. She lowers the footrest and prepares to stand. She pauses to feel the carpet fibers on the bottom of her bare feet—every sensation is alive with recognition.
She slowly rounds the corner, enters the kitchen, and sees her husband sitting at the table with his Bible. He is jotting down notes in his journal. He smiles at her, and she says, “How about some pie?” He says, “You know I will never turn that down.” He asks, “Do you want me to get it?” She says, “No, I’m fine.” He knows when she is set to do something herself, she will do it. So, he offers no protest.
She cuts two healthy portions and places them on small plates. She bought these dishes about seven years ago when they were on a trip to Montana—back when they could still travel. She tops the pie with fresh whipped cream, and they move to the front porch.
The summer evening breeze flows over her skin with kindness. She thinks back to how many times she has loved that feeling. They have some small talk but mostly sit silently, enjoying each other’s presence. After finishing the dessert, she places the dirty dishes on the end table and leans against him as they linger in the moment.
They look over their land with contentment. They have lived there for the last 38 years of their 52 years of marriage. It is a small portion of land backed up against farmland, which always provides beautiful sunsets. She recalls how they had struggled to save and buy that country home. They worked hard for the past 38 years, paying off the mortgage and caring for the land. The land had left its imprint upon them, and they had left their fingerprints on it. The hills and folds of the land remain the same as the day they moved in, but they had manicured many of the finer details.
The satisfaction she is experiencing flows from the beauty of the place and the grace the Lord has shown them all these years. Scanning their heritage, they see the trees they planted when each of their kids was born; now large, they provide shade and nesting for the songbirds she loves so much. The freshly mowed grass also sings to her.
She sees the ravine where her husband once tipped the tractor, giving her a scare and a week of tending to him in the hospital. There is the hill where several of their beloved pets now rest and the large rock under the walnut tree where she loves to sit and pray.
A couple of hours later, her husband hears her shuffling around, getting ready for bed, so he begins his nightly routine of closing windows and turning off the lights. Even in these little services, he finds joy because he knows every comfort he gives her is returned to him a hundredfold.
He has always enjoyed this part of the day, but tonight, it glows with grace like never before. At each window, he stops, looks out, feels the breeze, and remembers. He thinks of the moment he lifted her veil at the wedding. It was like seeing her for the first time. Once the shroud had been removed, he noticed every feature of her face, and it was beautiful.
He moves slowly as he goes from room to room, making his rounds. He waits by each window, dawdles by every door, and loiters by every light switch. He doesn’t want it to end. His mind traverses many moments of their life together. He praises God because, in finding her, he had found a good thing and obtained favor from the Lord.
He is unsure how to be strong enough for her over the next season of their life together, but he commits himself to the Lord and trusts him to provide the needed strength. They lay in bed together and begin to doze off, both wide awake to the countless blessings in their lives.
This struggle has lifted the veil of familiarity from their eyes. Though melancholy accompanies the blessing, the Lord is with them, showing them countless pleasures in the small moments. What they had often missed in the busyness of life, they now receive as precious gifts from his hand. It is one of the ways their Heavenly Father speaks tenderly to them in the valley of trouble.
-D. Eaton
The Fight of Faith 