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11/9/2015 2 Comments

Grace Carries

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By Maryanne Abbate


​They lived happily ever after……

As a child, that was my favorite part of a fairy tale. With dreamy thoughts, I imagined my carefree self tightly holding on to my beloved, our hair playfully flowing in the wind as we rode on the back of a magnificent white stallion into the radiant sunset.

I carried this naive thinking into adulthood wanting to see the world through rose colored glasses, choosing to believe that marriage would be magical - blissful. This was an unrealistic perspective, an unfair setup for my future prince.

When I met him in college, I fell hard for those dark chestnut brown eyes and olive Italian skin. He captured my heart, and we married. However, our ride into the sunset was more like a roller coaster ride through the center of a tornado. Reality has a way of crushing the fairy tale ending. Our story got messy.

Within the first eighteen months of marriage, I gave birth to twins. I had been on bedrest for two months, yet our babies were still eight weeks premature. Their birth and neonatal stay left us with staggering medical bills and a painful diagnosis of cerebral palsy for our daughter. She needed extensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy. More money…. More time…. More anguish….

Our young marriage struggled to survive under the weight of our heavy circumstances. Hurt and pain abounded creating a crater-like chasm between us. We dealt with our hurt and disappointment in different ways making it hard to comfort one another..

We were both in survival mode.

He worked to pay the bills, and I took care of the twins and coordinated umpteen doctors appointments and therapy sessions. We were numb and drifting.

The image of the magical sunset in our fairy tale had certainly faded; our story was in desperate need of God’s grace to paint a new sunset of deeper sustaining colors as well as to infuse new life - new hope into our marriage.

Friend, God’s grace can always be found in abundance when we find ourselves in the threadbare places of life. His word says, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).


God was gracious to us, and He extended His grace in a multitude of ways.

This grace came through wise counsel from surprising sources, the support of our church community, timely provision for bills and help, and most importantly by God’s presence and the balm of His word.

His grace sustained us giving us the supernatural capacity for empathy and a clearer perspective of each other’s hearts.

However, it was and is still a process.

Imperfectly, we learned to make allowances for each other’s pain. Grace allowed us the latitude to express hurt in our own unique healthy ways.

Imperfectly, we learned to forgive each other when overwhelming circumstances left us deficient, hindering us from meeting each other’s needs.

Years later, grace would literally carry our marriage in a dramatic way. In 2006, my husband and I buried our youngest son who died in a tragic car accident.

Without grace, we couldn’t have survived such devastation.

We still desperately need it.

We still fall short in the application of it, yet it still sustains us.

It is the anchor, the mainstay of our  lives  in ways I can’t explain.

Grace is life saving - life giving.


Word of the Day:
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”  2 Corinthians 9:8


Prayer:  Father, I come before you with a heart filled with gratitude and awe for the gift of your grace.  Its power carries, sustains, and breathes new life into my weary soul.  Help me to clearly see where Your ribbons of grace and  goodness have been woven through the chapters of my life.  You always offer me security of heart, so I can face my unknowns with confidence.  I ask these things in Jesus name, Amen.

2 Comments
Maria
11/9/2015 11:47:01 pm

THANK YOU!!! Today God answered. Maryanne thank you. We lost our 21 day old daughter Sept 22 of this year Madeline ( named for Mary Magdeline) Grace (because it was His grace that we caught my cancer early) who spent all the days of her life in NICU.Since then our marriage is not perfect. I'm numb to all feelings lately dealing with no longer being able to have children, the loss of our daughter, my hormone changes and still grieving the passing of my mother in May. This spoke to me. I don't know how he's processing anything. We promised we'd communicate our hurts but it seems as though my hurt is just to much where I almost don't ever want to talk to him. We're struggling. We love each other but struggling. Our other 3 children don't notice because we hide it well. Gods grace is powerful. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.

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Maryanne Abbate link
11/11/2015 05:11:27 pm

Dear Maria,

I am so sorry for the loss of your precious daughter, Madeline. I love her name and its meaning. My heart breaks for you because I know the depth of your pain. It takes a parent a long time to find their way back into this world after such devastation. Feeling numb is normal. You have lost a lot in a very short time. I'm sorry to hear of your cancer, your surgery, hormone changes and the loss of your precious mom. That's a lot for one soul to bear.

I pray that you will give yourself permission to grieve. Be kind to your heart and give it the space and time it needs to process all that has happened. Tears are healing. Never underestimate the power of your tears. If your children see you cry its okay, you are teaching them about grief and love. I know its hard to take care of your other kids when your heart is so broken. Please, let others help carry your burden with their offers of help and prayers. I offer myself to you if you need someone to talk to.

This is very hard on a marriage because both partners are hit by this loss and comforting each other is difficult. I had to find safe friends, a grief group, and counseling to process my pain. That way I could give my husband the space and time he needed. Men seem to process these things so differently than women.I had to ask God to hold us together and show me new ways to love my family. I commit to pray for both of you. Please know you are not alone and please feel free to contact me if I can be a source help and comfort.

You will never be the same and you will never get over this but the pain will get softer and little bit easier to bear. There are some things in life that we learn to carry, and this is one of them. You will find joy again and actually smile and laugh. I know that's hard to imagine right now. God's grace does sustain and someday you will look back and see it. God will meet you at your point of need and carry you. He is always close to the brokenhearted and the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). He has caught every tear that you have shed in His big capable hands. Not one tear has been lost. He sees you... He cares.... He wants to bring healing to your life. i am evidence of that.

Again, please free to reach out if you need someone to talk to. Please know that I will be praying for you and your precious family.

Hang in there my sister. You will make it. I am praying.

Love in Christ,
Maryanne Abbate

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