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CBN.com – "I looked at Duane and he had a very peaceful look on his face knowing what he was going to have to go through," says Carole. " I said, 'Honey, this is just about to kill me. I don’t think I can go on without you.'"
Duane and Carole Logsdon had become wealthy as inventors, and they gave millions away to their first love–missions. But this was all about to change. It began with Duane’s sudden hearing loss.
"When we went to the doctor," says Carole, "it was a hearing loss and nothing more than a hearing aid as far as we were concerned."
The doctor’s diagnosis turned their lives upside down.
"To find out it was an acoustic neuroma was something of a shock," Carole explains. "It would entail a very, very major surgery. It would entail a craniotomy, the lifting of the brain and going down into the ear."
An acoustic neuroma is a cancerous tumor, and it had to be removed immediately. This life threatening surgery was really their only choice, so they faced it as bravely as they could.
"We both kept thinking we are going to get out of this and we are going to come through this and Duane will be healed and life will go on. I kept that feeling for quite awhile. But then as the days went on and as he continued to get worse, I questioned and wondered, Is God really going to heal him?"
Carole wrestled with the Lord. She wondered what He was doing. Finally she gave Him full control of her husband’s life. Only then was she able to make sense of the situation.
"I have always felt that the Lord doesn’t make mistakes," she says. "We don’t always understand why things happen the way they do. I tried to trust in Him, knowing that for some reason He knew what He was doing and that I must really try and open up my life and grow from the experience."
The tumor was gone, but Duane now faced a new problem. Any kind of noise was amplified so much that life was almost unbearable.
"No television, no radio, the sound of the doorbell, the sound of the telephone–all of those things were very excruciating to him," Carole explains.
Meanwhile,
the doctors offered no hope, and the couple spent more and more time alone
in their home. Their isolation only added to Carole’s agony.
"I went through all kinds of things," she says. "There was a time when I was angry at God. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of the Word and I just wanted to be in the Word all the time. I wanted to seek the Lord. I wanted to pray. I wanted to get closer to Him and find out what my part was in this."
Duane died on February 22, 1998. Carole was crushed, mourning the loss of her companion of 50 years. Every day she wrestled with consuming loneliness.
"I felt like people didn’t understand what I was going through at the time. The battle came because I had learned to share life with another human being that loved me. We shared life in every area, and all of a sudden that person is taken out and gone. It's like a fish out of water. You don’t know where you belong." Carole reveals.
In desperation Carole turned to her Savior for answers and for comfort. The Lord also sent her pastor to walk this journey with her.
"In the world’s system when something is broken we discard it; in God’s economy, it doesn’t have value until it is broken," says John Coloumbe, pastor of First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, California. "That is one of those mysteries: that God is able to take brokenness and bring redemption, to bring goodness, to bring a reflection of Himself."
"The healing was something that was very, very slow," Carole admits, "but I knew that Duane didn’t want me to sit back and lose myself in the grief. I also wanted to grieve in the proper way. I think that a lot of times when Christians go through this, we’re so afraid that they are not going to do it right. We are so afraid that we are not going to be a testimony to the Lord. And the Lord is saying to us, 'It's OK to cry. It's OK to be angry. It's OK to have these feelings.'"
The healing that Carole so desperately sought came slowly.
"When I was able to meet with other people and talk about Duane without crying, I realized that the healing was starting," she says. "I could share the beautiful memories without tearing me up inside. I knew that God was performing that healing inside of me."
On what would have been their 50th anniversary, Carole invited several close friends to go out to dinner. It was a turning point in her healing.
Carole recalls, "When I came back after a special night, it was neat to go into the bedroom and look at his picture and say, 'Happy 50th anniversary, Honey! I still love you. I miss you, but you’re in a better place."
For all the suffering that Carole has been through, she is enjoying life. She owes it all to one Who has never left her.
"I just love the Lord so much," she says. "I just feel like He’s taken us through so many things that I know He’s got a plan, I know He has a purpose, and I know that everything that has happened in my life has gone through His hand before it has ever touched me. My desire is to love Him and walk with Him and do whatever I can until He sends me home. Then I can say I finally get to see him face to face–the Lord and Duane!"
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