Peace

  Psalm 119: 114, 165, "You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in Your Word."  "Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble."

I don't know how people do it without Him.  I don't know how I would do it without Him.  Losing my mom wasn't the hardest thing that happened to me.  Seeing my kids go through their hells was.  Somehow losing a parent falls within the normal range of the way it's supposed to go, chronologically.  There is a lot I have to confront and deal with.  There is some anger because she "did this to herself".  She was an alcoholic.  She chose booze.  The wiser side of me knows this is a disease and not as simple as one day just stopping (without being changed from the inside out by the Holy Spirit).  But more than anything...just sad.  Sad when something happens and she would have been one of my first calls.  Sad because she was an AWESOME Nana.  My kids loved her so much and she loved them.  She was, for all purposes, their other parent who took care of them...financially, watching them when I needed it, loving them unconditionally.  The loss is HUGE.  It is also strange to not be able to say, "Oh, I'm Elaine's daughter."  I'm not really any one's earthly daughter anymore.  That's weird...and sad. 

I don't really know what grief is "supposed" to look like.  I'm not an emotionally open person who does this publically. But this has been a CRAP year to grieve.  How can I feel sorry for myself when there are SO many stories of tragedies, people walking through not being able to see their aging parents, sick people dying completely alone, sickness everywhere, SICKness (evil) EVERYWHERE.  So whatever it would look like in a "normal" year was taken away.  One time I did cry I was going through her stuff, which is partially my dad's stuff, and being just SAD that I didn't realize how incredibly brilliant and awesome he was while he was alive.  I did tell John, but I don't want to upset the kids, and feared hearing someone else's story of a worse situation which would belittle my feelings and make me go even more in my hole.

All this is just word vomit to get to my point...I don't know how I would walk through any of this, anything, without God.  He is truly my comforter.  I talk with Him constantly, can pray in an instant when I hurt.  He is my shield who protects me from letting me get under the sadness because there is greater hope in Him.  And in the craziest way, I walked, more like stumbled, my way through this year with peace because I know He is Sovereign and nothing going on in this craziness is out of His view or care.  I am so grateful He is for me and His love is that deep, and that wide that He never leaves me.  What a beautiful peace.

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