The search

2 Corinthians 1:4Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.


Have you ever gone to the store or been in a crowd with your child (or children) and that nervous feeling hits and you KNOW something is wrong? You start to look around, "where did he go??". Then the panic creeps in when you look around and don't see him, then you start to yell the child's name only to have them jump out of a cloths rack they are hiding in. Those like 10 seconds of pure panic is what its like living here on Earth without my son. Except he doesn't jump out of the ladies dress rack this time and the 10 seconds turn into years. 
Jackson is part of me and my very soul searches for him at the strangest times. There are times when I'm on the way to take Jenna Claire to school and Jett to daycare and my heart starts to beat out of my chest and I start to sweat. Its that feeling and I KNOW something is wrong. "What am I forgetting? I know its something major" I pull over and look back, 2 kids (both have cloths on), 2 backpacks, my purse, my phone, wait.......2 kids, that's the problem. I have 3 kids and one is not here.
That is the most horrible gut wrenching feeling. Then your open. Open to all the guilt and loss and it comes rushing over you like a tidal wave. I have learned that if I am in a place (like home) when that happens it's better to just let the wave consume me and live in the sorrow for a while, maybe all night maybe a few days. I never know how long it will last, but so far it has not been forever. That particular guilt and sorrow wave rolls back out to sea eventually.

When I worked in long term care at a nursing home there was a particular patient who had lost a daughter when she was young. She was hit by a car at about age 6. The patient suffered from severe advanced Alzheimer's disease and was well into her 80's when she was my patient. She would have those moments like I explained, she would just scream out her daughters name and keep saying "no, no, no, no". At this time I had no children and my heart went out to her but I was clueless. I thought to myself, that is just the disease making her relive that tragedy over and over. Now I feel totally different about the entire situation with that particular patient. I feel like it was more of her heart and soul searching for what it longed for more than anything else in this world. Her brain was just so congested with plaque from a horrible disease that it could not reason for her anymore. That's what happens, our brain tries to reason with our heart. When it comes to our kids that's really not possible because we love beyond all reason. We parents who have children in Heaven may seem "okay" but our very essence is searching. Always searching and watching and waiting until we are reunited with what was lost way to soon.

I find myself longing more and more for Jesus to return. Only Jesus can comfort me and He does. The day that He wipes away every tear will be the day I stop searching for my son. On that day all will be made right. Not just for me, for all of us. For all of us who search for what just cannot be found here, Jesus will make it right. We will be complete and I believe that day will be very soon. I believe that with every fiber in my body. Hold fast and keep praying and He will keep comforting.

~1 Thessalonians 4:13-17

¹³But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. ¹⁵For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. ¹⁶For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. (NRSV)