Grief

I’ve long known my best writing comes from my personal experience and for weeks I’ve been thinking about grief and loss. Two weeks ago, we were able to share with our kids that we are going to Disney World in December (a trip I literally prayed for because I knew we could never do it by our own means but had hoped to shower our kids with all that Disney magic and Kevin’s mom and stepdad turned out to be the means of God’s gift)! After the news, Molly Kate began systematically listing off the events of this past year. In part, I think she was surprised our year could end on such a good note…on the other hand, I think in her own small way, she desperately wanted to prove to herself that this year had more good than bad.

But, in truth, the bad of this particular year has felt heavier and harder and never-leaving in a way that makes it always seem to outweigh the good. Enter grief…grief over the hard parts, grief over so much death, grief over so much loss. Loss of actual people who either left our lives, moved or changed so drastically that life with them doesn’t feel like it used to, loss of a dear pet who spent so much life with us that life doesn’t feel the same without her and I’m beginning to assume it never will, loss of a season of life where my children all seemed little (not just some of them) and the sin issues were so much simpler (don’t touch, no fuss, do everything without arguing or complaining). Here lies grief…grief for death, grief for the loss and grief over change.

And the thing about grief is that it doesn’t just magically go away. “Time heals,” they say and maybe it does a little. Or maybe we spend the rest of the journey heavenward grieving what this life was never meant to be so that we hope in a much, much better one. I prefer the latter 🙂 I find it much more comforting to know that a life is coming when there will be no more loss, no more change, no more seasons gone by. I prefer an eternal home where joys are found at my God’s right hand and there are pleasures forevermore. And in a week where my grief has felt like it was hovering over me, I have often heard God whisper “keep trusting me, Laura…take your eyes off this passing world and put your hope in Me.”

I’m trying Lord…help me…