Grounded, Yet Held

🕯️ By now we should have been in the air, watching the land fall away beneath the wings, heading to Queenstown for our anniversary holiday. Instead, I'm sitting on a hard chair in A&E, my hands folded in my lap, watching the clock on the wall and the quiet rise and fall of Clive's chest beside me. My suitcase is still half-packed on the bed upstairs, waiting for a journey that has changed.

Clive hasn't been well for a few weeks now. Last night the hot and cold shivers came over him in waves, and around ten o'clock he came out of the office after speaking with his brother, sank into the La-Z-Boy, and passed out. His eyes rolled back. I called his name, and he didn't answer. For one long, suspended moment, I thought we'd lost him. 😪 For a long while after we went to bed, I kept listening for his breathing, and for the first time in 34 years of marriage, his snoring brought a sense of peace. It told me he was still alive.

✍️ I've written so often about broken pottery, about vessels that crack and the gold that fills the seams. Last night I felt like a jar slipping from a shelf, caught in that breathless second before it reaches the floor. I didn't have eloquent prayers in that moment. I had his name, and I had the Name of Jesus, and somehow that was enough. When Clive came back to us, the room was the same room, yet everything in me had shifted. Love suddenly felt very fragile, and very precious.

🪨 This morning's verse of the day struck me: do not fear, for I am with you. I was upstairs packing for our trip when Clive called me down. He'd sat down in the lounge, and a sense of dread washed over me, as normally he would have come upstairs to talk to me. He wasn't feeling great and had consulted Dr Google, which suggested a viral respiratory infection and advised against travelling. After last night, we didn't need much convincing. If anything like that were to happen again, I'd rather we be here, where our support network is: our people, our doctor, our home. Sometimes faith spreads its wings and flies, and sometimes faith folds its wings and stays close to the ground, trusting that God is just as present in the waiting room as He is on the mountaintop.

Already, our people have shown us why we stayed. I'm humbled by the care and concern pouring in, and by the friend who turned up at A&E simply to sit with us for a moment. No agenda, no answers needed, only presence. Quite frankly, I don't even have the capacity to answer the kind questions: What do you need?🤔 How can we help?🤔 I don't know yet, and perhaps that's all right. Our Father knows what we need before we ask (Matthew 6:8), and sometimes love doesn't wait to be told what to do. It simply comes and sits beside you, the way Jesus does.

🕊️ So I'm laying the holiday down. I'm laying down the plans, the bookings, the pictures I'd painted in my mind of lake and sky and quiet mornings together. I'm placing them in Father's hands, alongside the far more precious thing: my husband. Holy Spirit has been so near today, not in anything dramatic, rather in the steady breath I keep finding when panic tries to rise. It feels like being gathered under His feathers, sheltered beneath wings I can't see yet can feel, upheld by a righteous right hand that hasn't let go of us for a moment.

I won't pretend the letting go doesn't sting. The flight's been cancelled, and while there's no refund, we'll have a voucher to fly another time. Barring the cancellation fee, most of the car rental is coming back to us. The accommodation is where it hurts: $1,500 gone, with no refund and not an ounce of humanity, not even an offer to reschedule in light of a medical emergency. How ironic that the Airbnb was called "Peaceful". 🤔 I've had to sit with that one for a while, laying it before the Lord before it could settle into bitterness. Perhaps that's the quiet lesson tucked inside the loss. Peace was never something I could book or pay for. He Himself is our peace, and He came with us to A&E.

🕯️ Yesterday I learnt that God designed us to live one day at a time. Rather than carrying yesterday's hurts forward or trying to solve tomorrow's problems today, we're invited to trust Him for the grace and help we need in the present. Isabel described God's daily mercies as a "package" prepared for that day, enough to face its challenges, and encouraged us to close each day by repenting where needed and forgiving others, so resentment doesn't accumulate. Her practical invitation was to notice what we're feeling, ask God for the help we need, and choose to live today with trust and freedom.

She wove it all so beautifully through Scripture: Jesus' tender reminder not to worry about tomorrow, as tomorrow will worry about its own things (Matthew 6:24–34, especially verse 34); the psalmist's joy that this is the day the Lord has made (Psalm 118:24); the promise that His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23); and the Lord's Prayer itself, where we ask only for today's bread and forgive our debtors as we've been forgiven (Matthew 6:9–13). She reminded us to lay aside every weight that so easily ensnares us, fixing our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1–2), and even to love and pray for those who've wronged us (Matthew 5:43–48). I had no idea how soon I'd need those words. Today's package held a frightening night's aftermath, a cancelled trip, and a loss I could easily nurse into resentment, yet tucked inside it were His mercies, measured perfectly for this day. Perhaps tonight, as I close this day, I'll pray a blessing over "Peaceful" and its owners, and leave it there.

It moves me deeply that our 34th wedding anniversary has become a living expression of the vows we made all those years ago: in sickness and in health. Queenstown was meant to be the setting for our celebration, yet love has found another place to reveal itself, right beside Clive in an A&E waiting room. There's no stage, no scenery, no celebration dinner, only two people choosing each other again in an ordinary room. I think that may be the truest anniversary gift of all. Love isn't proven on the mountaintops; it's proven in the quiet staying. Like kintsugi, the cracks in this season don't diminish what we have. They're simply the places where His gold will shine through.

🕊️ As I write, I realise this isn't a story about fear disappearing. It's about discovering that God's faithfulness remains even while fear is present. Our plans have changed. My heart has been shaken. The financial loss is real. Yet beneath everything that feels uncertain, the Father's hands remain steady.

📖 "I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." — Psalm 4:8 (NKJV)

🌱 The doctor has given it a name: viral respiratory infection and vasovagal syncope, a common, generally harmless type of fainting that happens when your nervous system overreacts to a trigger, causing your heart rate and blood pressure to drop suddenly. I felt my shoulders drop for the first time since last night. It's not the ending I feared; it's an invitation to rest, and not only for Clive. Between his health and my own burnout, a week at home resting is probably the wisest decision for now. Tomorrow Clive will see Dr Kelly, and in the meantime we're asking the Lord for three things: healing and strength for Clive, wisdom for the doctor, and His peace over our home. Saturday is our anniversary, and maybe by then we'll be recovered enough to go out and do something special, but for now, we'll rest. Queenstown will still be there. The lake will still shimmer. Perhaps this anniversary will become one I remember not for the mountains we didn't see, but for the precious life sitting beside me, still breathing, still here. For today, I'll grab hold of His package of mercies and rest in the knowledge that He holds us through it all. 🤗💞