Where is the Purpose?

So it's January. I am hopeful that this year will be better than the last. There is a part of me that is doubtful too, you see. For all the reading I have done, the clippets of information from all the books on grief, including the people I have talked to about grief, things aren't looking up.

Most of the people I talk to who have gone before me on this journey of grief are quick to inform me that it gets worse long before it gets better. According to the experts on the subject, we are looking at a good 2 years of hard traveling through the mirky waters of grief. At times this seems overwhelming at best. How is it that we could feel worse than we do now? When you already feel as if you are drowning, is it possible to feel as though you are drowning slowly and painfully in some abyss of thick mud? I tend towards, yes.

I have to tell you that I do laugh. I spent the holidays doing normal activities while feeling like I was going crazy. I played cards, made cookies, went skiing, played boot hockey (scored a few goals and even checked a few unknowing fellow players), wrapped and opened gifts, played Christmas music, went to Holiday Programs and services and rang in the New Year at a Waterpark with my family and friends. Pretty normal and even eventful, right? So tell me then why I felt like a 1/2 of a person, wishing I was locked up somewhere with a pack of cigarettes and a padded wall, maybe even some heavy sedation.

When Gretta first died, I had so many people tell me that my testimony at her funeral and the funeral itself (linked on my blog under "Gretta's Links") was such an inspiration to them, would change people and things for the better, that God would use this for good. That was sortof the mantra around me for a few weeks, maybe the first couple months even. I felt that maybe in all of this there was a purpose, a deep meaning, a reasonable reason.

In the aftermath of those first months, I have been left feeling like, "Where is the purpose, what has happened that explains even reconciles the death of my little 2 year old daughter?" I find it difficult to put on the damper for the optimists in my life, but I am not seeing it. Maybe it is not for me to see now or yet, or please God no! ever. I feel like screaming, "Show me something! Tell me something! Give me some reasonable but perferrably profound explanation here Lord and make it snappy!" Can I do that ? Can I scream at God? Will He listen to me when I do? I have to say I am not so sure. I mean I CAN scream, but is He listening to me?

I have always been a planner, an organizer, "in control" even in "out of control" situations. I guess this is one of those times where I must release myself into this completely unorganized, unplanned, total chaos careening out of control places and somehow find some kind of rest? Peace? Quiet? Solace? Yea, uh huh, right, I'll get right on that.

Incidentally or not, I was reminded by a friend that I need to be in the Word of God everyday to hear His voice. It is a voice that my soul aches for, it is His words that I need, His promises, His salvation and salve to my wounded being. So, taking her advice in hand, I have been reading Psalms and Proverbs at least everyday. I would be lying to say that I have found what I am craving there. I have not. What I have gotten however; is a small bandaid with a dot of Neosporin on it to cover my gaping wound. Like you would imagine, I put it on and within a short period of time it slips off, lost somewhere. The swift and obvious answer then is to go right back and get another dose, another bandaid, however small it seems and reapply, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. If it will console you to know it, I will tell you then, that I realize it and I will continue to do it; however brief the comfort, however small the relief.