Journey to joy

Psalm 63:3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

I was sitting outside with the kids yesterday and watching them play. I recall a time when I could never see myself doing that again. I was so blinded by grief and total devestation that I could not see myself ever enjoying anything again. So many people say that time heals all wounds but I'm guessing whoever said that meant physical wounds. Heart and soul wounds are not that way. They do not heal the way a cut does. A cut will heal and probably just leave a faint scar as a reminder that you were ever wounded.  A wound to a parents heart and soul does not work that way. The wound does not heal but the pain changes over time. The wound is constant but it becomes part of you in that you are able to do more than one thing at a time. I hurt day and night that Jackson is not here, but I'm able to clean the house and hurt. I get short of breath at the realization of our loss but I'm able to watch Jenna Claire play a t-ball game at the same time. In the beginning the wound is all consuming and the pain is so intense that it's all you can do to breath. In time you are able to hurt and do small things like take a shower. Before you know it you wake up and walk to the kitchen for coffee and realize "The pain was not the first thing on my mind today" though the pain is still there its less crippling. Then you feel guilty because the realization that your life is still moving is painful. As parents we don't desire to go on here without our child, it’s the most unnatural thing that can happen.

The thing about it is that we have no choice in the fact that we must go on, it's not our time yet. The choice we do have is to live the life God wants for us to live or to live the life the enemy would have us think we must live. I think I was somewhere in the middle of those 2 for over a year at least after the accident. I knew God loved me and did not want me to be so depressed that it physically hurt me to move. I knew that God was hurt at the sight of me, I felt that. I knew my son was living, he was just living somewhere else for now. However the fog was too thick and the pain was too real and I think that is absolutely acceptable. I think that for a time our body just goes into survival mode and it does all it can do to keep us alive despite our hearts desire to just stop. Our human will is gone but Gods will is alive.

THAT is how I know I'm changed. I remember those feelings but I don't feel that ache to just not be alive anymore. While it's true that I still ache to be with Jesus and have Him make it all new for us, I also have a strong ache to live the life my God has chosen for me. If I stop and give in to the lie the enemy would have me believe I'm wasting the gift God has given me.  We are all gifted no matter what we have suffered. We bring something to Gods table. For me I have the gift to share my pain and struggle with others who are suffering, the gift of a mouth that never shuts up in order to spread His love, the gift of healing, the gift of total empathy for others who hurt, the gift of being a wife and mother, the gift of understanding others grief.

While I am still so far from where I need to be, I’m sure not where I was. I am also not who I was before the accident. Everything in my life is classified by one moment “before” and “after”. That will never change but it doesn’t have to keep me from being who God planned for me to be. Am I mad about it, sure I am! I would go back and be who I was in a minute to have my life back but that’s not a choice. So I pick the best of the 2 choices I was given, I choose to live.  I choose to try so hard to live a life worthy of my savior. There are people who feel so alone right now. They are facing a pain that they never knew a human could withstand without dying from it. Those people need to know they can survive. They need to SEE they have a choice. When the moment comes that they realize the pain was not the first thing on their mind, I want to be here. I want to be here to help them SEE the real choice. They need to survive in order to share their gifts whatever they may be. They need to live the life our savior means for them to live.

If we just let go and let God,all things are possible even the absolutely impossible......you will find joy.

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~Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing. Psalm 143:10