0:02

Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host belah. Rose.

0:18

Hi there and welcome. Thank you for joining me on the show. I’m not sure if this is your first time, but today, I really have a powerful story for you. You might need to get the tissues ready. I know I did, or at least should have had them ready. I’ve got Julie Dibble on the podcast today she’s got just amazing insights that I really think are going to benefit you. Before we dive into her story though, I just want to share with you that I am doing coaching and intimacy coaching, if you have been with the podcast for a while you know that, you know my focus is really enabling you and empowering you to have the advice and insight you need to have a really wonderful sex life and intimacy in your marriage to really enjoy it and to have that a fulfilling part of your life together and what God really designs and desires for you to have. So if you’re struggling in that area, if that’s something you need, advice on coaching on someone to listen and ask you questions that are going to get to really the root of what you’re struggling with. I would love to be there for you. I’d love to work with you on that. So just go to my website, delight your marriage.com and click on book coaching with Bella you can learn more there. Alright, so let’s go ahead and dive into Julie’s story

1:56

Hi there delight your marriage listeners. belah rose. I’m so glad that you’re joining me. Today I have Julie Dibble with Julie dibble. writes.wordpress.com Welcome, Julie.

2:10

Thank you so much belah.

2:12

I’m glad you’re here. Well, I, you know, you and I have kind of been emailing back and forth. And you and I were just chatting a little bit. And I think this is going to be a really powerful and probably emotional conversation that we’re going to dive into. And so just to kind of start off, would you go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit about your family and what your day to day life looks like? Sure. Julie told me that she is first and foremost a lover of Jesus, though she came to him later in life than most.

2:48

So gracious. I’m so gracious that he stuck with me until I found him he until I accepted him. So my marriage to Jason began what I call in my godless life. You know, it was godless to me, but he was there. And we will have been married. Oh, Bella, we will have been married. I’m counting on them up. Oh, my goodness. Well, it’s it’s funny because we did. Um, we renewed our vows a couple years ago. And we did that on an audio year it was year 11. So I think we are heading to year 13 cuz that would have summer. We’ll be three years ago. So 13 years, and we have two boys. Ages 12 and 10. Braden is 12. And he is a writer. Like his mama. And Jackson is a sports net. He’s 10. And he’s got more energy than all three of us combined. So our day to day life. I’ve been a stay at home mom for oh, I think it’s going on five years now six years. And at the very beginning of that, that’s when it was I was on the cusp of meeting God and I was not happy being a stay at home mom, my husband had married a career woman. And he was in the military. So that’s what we did first and our boys were born in Italy. And there was not many jobs for spouses there on the Italy base. So right away, I didn’t have a career and that was a sticking point for me for a long time. And as I became familiar with God, really one of my first prayers was please Lord, you know that I You know, I, I want a job, I want to use my brain. And so I’m still at home, but I am writing. I am growing as a speaker. And this is something that he’s called me to do. So there you go.

5:17

Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. So cool. And you told us a little bit. Jason is your husband. Can you tell us just a little bit about your and his personalities?

5:30

Yes. And he is a police officer. So he started in our marriage in the military and when he got out he got became a police officer. So he’s working on 10 years is that if military and police have anything in common, it’s certainly attention to detail. Timeliness, he is very particular with certain things and always has been. I am. I am so and he’s definitely more comfortable in the background of things when I am in the center of things. You know, certainly I am particular about certain things but not the way things look not the way he is in that regard. So what I had to learn when I married him was his humor, his sarcasm sarcastic and very almost quiet, you’re not expecting it. I’ve learned to really appreciate that surprise. Whereas when you talk with me is I’m sure you and the rest of the people are getting to know you know, it’s it’s right here. You know, my smile my my energy i stories, so we are opposite, but boy does that. Mmm hmm. It brings complements to a marriage. It also brings challenges obviously.

7:01

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then what is a scripture or a quote that has meant a lot to you? Maybe recently or over the years?

7:11

Huh? Recently belah. I have I I don’t know if anybody there if you’re familiar with God calling. This is a devotional. And you know, Jesus Calling is the one that you hear a lot of, but this is titled God calling and it’s edited by AJ Russell. We had you know what, I don’t even know who gave it to me, actually. But we started in January. And for a quick history, then my husband had surgery on August 24. He got hurt on the job on his police job. And he had to have a his upper pectoral muscle on his right hand side repaired, had torn. So the fall was when I was supposed to start writing my first book, The Fall was when I look forward to the boys as much as I love them, but going back to school, so that I have time, you know, to think and write and do my thing. And his surgery, God put it right on the day that the kids started school. So there really was no you know, no downtime for me. And in the very beginning of this process, I was I started out very thankful looking for God. We had, I’ll save some of that story for as we go, but it didn’t stay that way. Unfortunately, I really, you know, I fell back into old patterns of wanting my time and wanting more control over things when God that’s not the way he wants us to roll in marriage or anything else. And so when you ask about a thing recently in this devotional, this was only January 22. And it was probably a few weeks prior to this fella that we had the scan that told us that Jason’s lymph nodes in his lungs had grown. So we knew we were headed for some more medical challenges. And this is what I read on January 22. If a gray day is not one of thankfulness, the lesson has to be did until it is not to everyone is it so but only to those who asked to serve me well, and to do much for me? A great work requires a great and careful training. And so I mean, I couldn’t even finish reading the sentence, the first time that I was, you know, just really knew that was for me knew that my lesson was not learned in the fall, and God’s gonna keep teaching me until I get it.

10:32

And, you know, I think the good. I mean, the good thing, the loving thing is that he doesn’t leave, he stays with us. He continues to teach us, he certainly forgives us when we fall. And those are things that I have really come to appreciate about him.

10:57

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a great work requires a great and careful training. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, you share it a little bit about what’s gone on. And, you know, stories are just powerful. I’m sure that listeners can relate to so much of what you’re going to share. So will you go ahead and kind of start us off with some of the backstory and maybe some of the the season of struggle in your marriage, what you’ve gone through?

11:41

Sure. I’ll start with, you know, when, very briefly the the year that we renewed our vows, so by that time in our marriage, so it was about half of our marriage, that I was not with God. And then I was very young, but I had already been rocking and rolling. And when we became had become members of our church. And so we renewed our vows at our church, which was my first only ever church. With my first only ever pastor who did the ceremony. We, about six months before that, we had decided Bella that we he and I only without the children would go away four times a year. And on our budget, we couldn’t do, you know, week long vacations, but a night or two, four times a year. And that came with just after such challenges in moving around the world, and me having a history of depression, and that we decided, you know, that we were going to put ourselves first the marriage first that God asked us to do that. And it made such a world of difference. And when we celebrated our 11 years of marriage with our vow renewal, we had friends there that were newer friends, we had family that didn’t see us get married the first time because yeah, we got married when he was in the military. So it was just this blessing event that happened in front of God. We really, we wrote our vows, which was so powerful after the struggle we had had to that point. Yeah. So first of all, I recommend anybody to renew your vows in your marriage and the year is not important. It is such a beautiful journey to review why you got together in the first place, and then why you’re renewing how you’ve changed. And so the ironing when I say that is, I really think we could probably do that again here in a year or two, because it’s just been that challenging and that character shaping. So after the vow renewal, we had a couple of years of, I would just really say marital bliss, we we were on the same page, we were doing our spending time together and valuing that and doing things as a family and it just flowed and then this injury happened this past summer and when he got hurt at work, his work, you know, when you get hurt on the job, they you know, he worked light duty until he had the surgery. And I was so confident that this surgery was going to be over and done with I’m telling people at church. Yep. Once we get to August 24, you know, then we can start the healing process. Huh? Well, because it had, he had gotten hurt in July. And again, I have a book God laid on my heart last January, actually a year ago. And I was really planning to have started in the fall. So I had all these things. And again, for listeners who struggle as stay at home moms who kind of you lose yourself a little bit, I was just wanting to wrap myself up in this writing project and doing it for God for people out there. And so you don’t realize I didn’t realize Bella how the selfishness just grew. grew with that goal in mind. And so initially with the surgery I was I knew he’d need my help. I was, you know, okay, you know, doing that. But in the, the first two weeks after he had surgery, we were in the emergency room three times.

16:16

He The first time was scary. He, nobody kind of warned us about blood clots. And I’m not a nurse. So we’re sitting there on the porch one day in his, this was just a couple days after surgery, His arm was huge. And so till we got seen the next day, they were like, You need to go now to the ER. And they were worried it had spread to his lungs. We had you were all day in the ER it was. It was one of those days that I looked for God. I looked for him intentionally. And he was there every step of the way. We had a they got us right in. He had an ER nurse who showed me how to do the shots he needed in his stomach. My friend was able to get the kids and when I didn’t know how to get her the key and the ER door opens. And this man is there. Are you Julie? I said yes. Do you have a key? Yes, I do. It was crazy. And so it was scary, though. I mean, what they were talking like, we hope it didn’t go into his brain. We hope the blood clot didn’t go into his lungs. And so it turned out it was localized in his arm. And of course, we needed to get aggressive therapy started. And fellow one might say I was not meant to be a nurse. Like I you know, raw meat grosses me out, you know, I Yeah. So, the ER, he was a male nurse, and he said, Don’t worry, you got this, I’m gonna show you how to do this. And I am like, I have never, ever done a needle and I don’t even look when they do my blood, you know. But before we left that, er, boy, was he smart, because I had confidence that I could do this for my husband. And it just, it just seemed like I mean, I don’t know, if I’m remembering that correctly. But that may have been the last day that I looked for God intentionally because after that it was everything was a struggle. Jason didn’t like the shots in his stomach. And I understood that but I’m there like I have a mission. I don’t want these blood clots to spread throughout your body. And then he got an allergic reaction to one of the medicines, not the injectable one. But the other one, the Coumadin. And that landed us in the ER. And then they treated him with prednisone, which landed us in the ER again because if anybody has never taken prednisone it’s a really powerful steroid and they gave him they filled him with it to try to get this rash under control. And he was having symptoms that mirrored a heart attack. So gosh, we I and this again I’m just really Oh, I’m slightly ashamed of myself but I say that knowing knowing knowing I’m redeemed but this is the this was the morning Okay, the third er trip the morning of that. Jason is trying to tell me when I don’t feel right and i i have tingling and honest to goodness. I mean, he had had something for that many weeks already. I just was thinking, let’s go for a walk. I really did. I got him out of the house, we went for a walk. And then we get back. And he still says he’s not feeling well. So now I’m looking at him and I’m listening. And I said, All right, I will call our primary care doctor. And they when I told them the symptoms, they just said, you need to go to the ER right now. And again, there we were, again, like racing, the ER, and I’m like, what if I, you know, what, what if I’m in, I’m driving, and I’m like, what if I didn’t take him not knowing he wasn’t having a heart attack, it was just a mess. It was just a mess. And so we get in there. And again, the ER had a chair waiting for him, they knew the symptoms, they got him checked right away. And that they determined it was probably just that prednisone. It was just because they ruled out everything else, that it wasn’t a stroke, it wasn’t a heart attack. And after that, I just It had taken so much energy.

21:11

And I wasn’t asking the Lord to replenish that energy Bella, and it just depleted and I everything was a struggle, he he couldn’t drive for the longest time, I had to drive him to PT for his arm. And that was three times a week. And each time we’d go I’d feel like this is more writing time that I don’t have. He and I slept apart during this time, because he couldn’t sleep in the bed, he couldn’t lay down. So you know, ladies and friends, it doesn’t take long for a huge distance to grow in a marriage. That was only from August, to November, the beginning of November, that he went back to work light duty. And it was it was that it was that quick. And now what I want to say is just to know on how God made men, and how they need a physical outlet for their stress. And Jason, who typically worked out who typically, you know that in exercise workout, and then he typically worked a 12 hour shift as a patrol officer. So for him to have nothing to do but sit there because he couldn’t move his arm and he couldn’t exercise and he couldn’t break a sweat with just walking around the neighborhood. I believe that contributed of course to our difficulty because he’s not used to talking out his feelings. He’s not used to. He’s, I’ll say he, I don’t think he was used to me not being available. So even though I was home, I wasn’t available, because when he would do shift work, I would make sure he had the meal ready when he came home no matter what odd time that was, you know, I was available around his work schedule. But here he was here all the time, needing so much and I was not as emotionally available to him. And you know, we had a few very, very hard, hard discussions where it scared me It scared me that he was that frustrated and it scared me that I had allowed myself to become that distant

24:07

so as we went into December, I did start to ask the Lord specifically like I think I took for granted Bella that after when we were in that marital bliss phase, I just took for granted that these feelings would just naturally always be there for my husband. Yeah. And I, I am here to tell you that, you know, for me and the rest of the women who enter into a marriage, you do have to choose each day to love your husband. And I let time go not not knowing why those feelings weren’t there. And so when we hit December I started praying specifically, Lord, please, please give me the energy She, and the want to want to be intimate with my husband tonight. Yeah, yep. You know, please give me sweet words, Lord out of my mouth, so that my husband can hear that I love him. I mean, I just started praying very specifically like that. And, yeah. Um, so, yeah,

25:28

that’s powerful. I mean, I, I think, you know, so much that you underlined first of all, such a hard, very, very hard struggle, I mean, over and over again, you’re, you’re faced with the potential that he might die, right, right there right in front of you. And you have to, I mean, complete fear, complete anxiety and rushing around and all of this and then months of having every single day to take care of him. I mean, I can only imagine what I mean, how incredibly difficult. That is. And I think that, you know, health challenges are so hard, and so hard on marriages. So I love that you said, you do have to choose every day to love your husband. And another thing you said, is that you know, you are exhausted, but you didn’t ask God to replenish shoe for energy. So I guess I kind of want to hear a little bit more about just how you were able to keep going. What was that transition? Like?

26:46

Oh, sure. Bella, are you talking about when I was exhausted? You mean?

26:50

Yeah. And then I mean, now it seems like your perspective has shifted? How did that happen?

26:57

Um, okay, so, a little. Another thing about me and my husband, when you asked about personalities, we’ve identified this in the marriage, he and I, that we came together as two people that were self sufficient and independent. He’s the only member of his family that lives outside of the town that they all grew up in. If that gives you any idea of his independence, okay. And for me, as at a very young age, I had to take care of things in the house. So I say that because in a marriage, where two people are self sufficient, it’s you need to be intentional to depend on each other. And when I’m, he’ll tell you, when he works, and he works, night shifts and swing shifts, he pushes through that, that’s his determination that God gave him that’s his, you know, he pushes through that he doesn’t necessarily ask me for help. So we are in a very big learning phase. So for me when I was exhausted, you know, and not asking God I was pushing through, I was still getting up at 4am in the morning to do my devotions and my I don’t remember when I think I started my blog in September so I was committed to that you know, I needed something of mine and Hi, I did that because I wanted to the drive the self sufficient driving there again God says you do not need to be self sufficient child. Um, maybe you choose Bella wet at the beginning of every year, maybe you choose a word or a verse. So there I was watching social media, the beginning of this year going, I don’t really you know, I don’t really have a word I was so kind of still overwhelmed that I didn’t think one word would really help real um, but in prayer, and I really do do that. You know, I do that a lot. So in prayer, I heard surrender. And God forgive me for saying one word wouldn’t help because from the beginning of this new year, fella, daily, daily surrender, the control that I want, surrender my fear that I had about this other possible diagnosis. Surrender surrender the fear that my husband and I, you know, can’t get back, surrender it, give it to him, and he will take it. And then that allows once you empty, it allows him to fill you up. So, wow. Yeah, yeah. Yes.

30:25

That’s so good. Once you empty it allows him the space to fill you up. Mm hmm. So powerful. So, so, you know, as you well I do quantum want to hear a little bit more about you said the fear of this possible other diagnosis. So, you know, we knew about the the blood clots and that kind of thing, what ended up? Where did it go from there.

31:00

So, when, actually the day they scan him in the ER, so like, two days after the surgery back in August, they scanned him, his lungs, because they wanted to make sure there were no blood clots in there. And on that day, they found all these nodules in his lungs. And we were in our primary care, doctor’s office somewhere along the way. And he was like, Oh, we’ve got a, we’ve got to get those looked at. He was assessing Jason’s history of working overseas, of doing construction work of all these things. And I’m like thinking, I’m thinking, we can do that after Right? Like after the arm is going, we could go to get that taken care of. And he was like, no. So we, in October, he had another CAT scan, specifically for this thoracic cardiologist. And they, the results of that in October were that his lymph nodes and his lungs lit up under this test. And that was not what they were expecting. And in October, it was still close enough to the surgery that we accepted the doctor saying it is possible that your lymph nodes could be still overworking because you just had all this trauma to your body. And we opted to do nothing until January. And so it was it was agreed that we would get him another scan in January. And so the fear of cancer came fell out when we learned that the lymph nodes had grown. And the doctor said, well, the growth was slow. And you’re thinking that’s supposed to be my good news. So I I really didn’t think it was anything else. I thought that’s what it was. And I have lost a mom to cancer. I’ve lost an aunt, sir, I’ve lost a dad to a heart attack. I’ve lost I mean, a lost a lot of people in my life and I was at ready to lose him. So when God gave me surrender, it was Julie, I mean, just like literally I’m very visual. So I visualize putting Jason’s lymph nodes in Jesus’s hands and say, I know you can heal them if you want to. I know if you want you know if it is your will, that’s what we will do and I will serve I will be there I will do because it’s you know, the lessons that I learned from this past fall and so it’s it’s so like, I it Our brains are so powerful. Our brains like you want to believe something so there we were in the doctor’s office just yesterday going you really? You really think it’s just this stuff? Like you didn’t you checked everything I said there’s no cancer in there. And he was like, No, we suddenly found no malignancy and I just walked out of there. Like not even not even out of the building in the elevator. Can we praise Jesus? Can we tell him thank you can tell him thank you because, yeah, I mean, the difference in an autoimmune and cancer is huge. I mean, you still have to manage that one but you’re not going key through chemo and radiation and uncertainty and, and losing your hair and you’re you know, you’re not doing that.

35:02

Right. Right. So, you know, you and I chatted a little bit before, but just clarify what was found and what they thought it was.

35:10

Okay, so. So the SAR, Koi dosis is the diagnosis, and it’s this thing that can happen, and mostly, I guess, in your lungs. Unfortunately, Bella, there’s not a lot known about this particular auto. Yeah, the way that God is taking care of us is the surgeon gave us a specialist he knows. And this specialist loves this disease and studies that, Oh, yeah. If you’re gonna, if you’re gonna have, again, if you’re gonna have to be treated, you might as well treat it by the guy who loves the disease. Yep, yeah. So

36:01

that’s awesome. Wow, okay, well, praise God. So he doesn’t have cancer, he does have an autoimmune disease. But is it so it is treatable? Yes.

36:11

I mean, it’ll be managed, it’s, it’ll never like probably go away. It comes and goes in one’s life, the way auto immune, excuse me things do. And, excuse me, but I’m confident with the referral to the specialist. I’m confident that, you know, in God that we will get this under control. And, you know, there’ll be a medic to help his symptoms and things like that. So.

36:46

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it sounds, especially since you’ve had so much loss in your life. You know, you were talking about your aunt, your mom, your dad. You know, how was it dealing with the fear of potentially losing your husband? How did you deal with that for months on end?

37:19

I think, again, you had asked, like, when did the perspective change? I don’t think I’ll be honest, I don’t think I was dealing with it very well, from August to November. But I will say on that first day, that blood clot day I was intentionally looking for God and he was everywhere around me. And you know, that was a change for me and how to look for him. That was good. And in December, you know, so many things happen that I’ll tell you what happened. God took my hand, and he walked me back through my parents deaths. Because when they both died, I was not with God. And that contributed for many years to it was grief, upon depression or depression upon grief, you can’t tell. And so there is a post on at my blog on the website you gave it’s called Hope in the lonely Christmases or hoping the lonely Christmas losses. And it talks about how I am good now. I can go back there in the pain because he’s with me. He he God is with me. And I think along any fear that I had for Jason, the thing that I learned most over I mean, it’s so hard but overall fella was that I am never alone

39:18

I don’t want to be without my husband. That would not be my choice, but I am never alone. Yeah. Yeah.

39:33

I think if listeners out there who needs encouragement in this way, where she’s struggling with the potential loss of her husband, you know, what would you say to her?

39:50

First I would say that you are beautiful and you are brave and you are are asked by God to be with him in any way that you can be with him, your husband. And while you are with him your husband, allow Jesus to be there with you. Allow him, because when we say yes, Jesus, He is there. And so then he will he is, I mean Jesus, he can be your strength, he can be your comfort, he can be your healer, he can be your listener, he can be your ever. So gracious Redeemer when you screw up because you’re under stress when you lose your way, because you just can’t do one more thing. And he will take that and he will use it and he will forgive. And he will guide and he will teach.

41:11

Yeah. Well, I hope that you have been impacted deeply about what Julie has taught us, you know, a woman who has been through it. And I don’t know who’s on the other side of this podcast, maybe you have to, and you needed to hear her story and needed to know that Jesus is listening. He’s with you. He’s working with you depend on him, bring him into this situation, allow him to be God, and to hold you in it. He knows pain, he knows suffering, and he wants to be with you in it. Thank you so much for listening. I know the second half of this interview gives a lot of great insight, Julie shares about what’s brought them through these years, and especially his most recent months of marriage, and so let’s go ahead and sign off for today. But I’ll see you back here next Tuesday. God bless you. I’m praying for you your marriage and your walk with God. Talk to you soon.

42:30

Thanks for listening. Stop by delight your marriage.com to check out all the show notes as well as many more resources and articles. Until next time, live with love, wisdom in passion.