How We Heal

In the hours of quiet
When the darkness settles over
and I am covered with my sorrow
and thinking of my little girl

I feel the warmth of arms unseen
wrapped and holding all of me

In this embrace I do not struggle
I do not try to get set free
I lay my head upon strong shoulders
and let His healing wash over me

Though there is pain all around us
and struggles will accompany
I know that I have found my Saviour
with His great mercy, rescues me

I will cry out in bitter mourning
I will scream out at the sharp edge of pain
I will have times of unconsolable weeping
But all of this will be for gain

Remember me not as bitter and hopeless
Not with tears streaming down my face
Remember me as a Warrior for Jesus
For in His love, I found my place

Carry not with you my pain and grief
not like a sadness or bag of weights
but take lifes' trials with a heart of embracing
Until we meet our eternal fate!

We cry out for healing,
we look for the cures
but much of the healing will not come
for sure
Not here on earth but later on
when we reach the Light, the eternal Dawn

Don't push me to say that I'm over this
That I should pretend pain does not exist
I've seen it and felt it and know how it's real
and all of this is part of How We Heal.

God is Faithful

Often times I write in my blog, because the pain I feel is desperate and it comes when I am alone and the house is quiet and still. It comes when I cannot sleep and I need to cry out.
It comes when I have settled down from the tasks of the day that keep me occupied and I am able to clear my mind of mundane things. Then the whole of my daughters death seeps in. Pieces of her are around me all the time and I see her in other little girls, in the pictures we keep of her and in the small things that happen here without her. When I look at my children together eating dinner as I stand in the kitchen, it always strikes me "there should be four". I say this because...

I know some of what I write in this blog is dark and depressing and could even be viewed as hopeless. I am not hopeless, but hopeful. I am hopeful of the eternity ahead with all those I love. I am hopeful that while I am here on earth I will make a difference for Christ.

I have really good days. I have days when I smile all day and laugh and play and work hard and I forget that deep down I am sad. I don't think I will ever not be sad. It just takes different forms from day to day. You just don't get over the sadness that comes from giving a child back to Heaven. You just don't. Sadness will always be a part of who I am now but it won't be all that I am.

I read a great quote today in the book, Choosing to See by Mary Beth Chapman. Mary Beth is the wife of Steven Curtis Chapman and they lost their daughter Maria in May of 2008, just a few months before we lost Gretta. The quote hit home for me and it by one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis.

"We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." ~ C.S. Lewis

That about sums it up.

Lesley

Cold and Dead

Gretta, I drove past the graveyard today, I stopped.
Begrudgingly, slowly, heavily I walked up to the cold, still bed that holds you. The ground.
Your headboard a stone with words chiseled into the face, a small picture of you.
There was nothing there. It was an empty, lifeless void. A nothing, a cold, grey space of your memory.
I knelt.
I touched the stone, ran my fingers along your picture and touched your cheek.
I felt nothing and left.

This visit is just like my insides now. Dead, lifeless, cold and grey. Untouchable. Unseen and decomposing.

Is there a time when we are left alone to our own pain and self pity? Does God walk away? Has He decided to tend to other things? He has seen it best to leave me cold and empty now for 2 long years. There is no movement and I can't decide if it's my fault or not. I have no strength to lift myself out of this pit of unquenchable sadness and anger and lifelessness. Will He come and lift me out? Why does this have to part of my story and how long will it take???

I go to school now. I have decided to go back to school for my BA in Community Psychology and onto Graduate school for Corporate/Family Crisis Counseling and Intervention. I am doing well in school and have found a renewed passion for standing against the agendas of Satan on a secular college campus. At school I can be "on fire" for God, bold in my speeches against the popular agendas, but my drive home....my time at home....I am just this empty dead person.

I haven't picked up my Bible in weeks, I pray, but for other people or my kids, I work on Sundays, I am not in any spiritually feeding women's or co-ed groups. I can give, but I cannot recieve.

Can someone explain why this is happening to me? How long this will last? If I can change this? Or is God just leaving me to my own demise for a time?

The thing is, in the back of my mind, I just know that even though Gretta is gone, that is just part of my story. I just don't know what to expect anymore.