I’m sorry. I’m afraid, I can’t. [day 2].

God tells us 365 times in the Bible not to be afraid. One for each day. You would think we would be able to get this one down pat.

Go...

I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m not there yet.

In a matter of 19 months and then in the blink of an eye my life was irrevocably changed. So how do I begin again. It’s easy, though still very painful, to look back now and see how I got here. Yet, I’m afraid I don’t know what tomorrow brings. It’s hard.

I’ve gotten to the true grieving part. The part where most of my pain is private, inward, isolated. There are several reasons I say this.

1. Grieving, unlike her outward sister Mourning, is a heart and spirit thing. It’s done almost entirely by oneself. But God. Thank goodness for God!
2. I grieve privately because after 3 1/2 years people wonder why I’m still grieving, and there’s noway to tell them the truth. It doesn’t end. It simply becomes apart of you.
3. I isolate. And I believe that most widows and mothers of the deceased child isolate, even if that was not apart of who they were before the sorrows.

Stop.

During this transition, which will end with me being okay. Though many things in this new life, that I didn’t anticipate, cause me great fear (anxiety) I run to Father God and find one of His encouragements to not fear, as I work towards courageous.

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9b

Well, I found that that five minutes lasted quite a bit. Funny how time is so much more when you live in faith. Thanks for stopping by … I hope this helps someone. If I can just help one to feel not alone I’ll be happy.

 

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Let it rain…

Ecclesiates 3 There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

²     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

THE FMF PROMPT: RAIN…GO.

Here on the East Coast of the U.S., It’s been swelteringly hot and humid.  To swelter is to be uncomfortably hot, a nice way of saying it’s been hot and heavy as h……. 😳

The heaviness of the air truly wants to let the moisture go and we sure prayed for any relief at all. Just a breeze or a quick sun shower, though the sun was hidden behind the gloomy haze.

The heaviness in the air reminded me of my emotions. Three years and I’ve learned to gather all those tears inside of me. All the emotions stored and threatening to burst at any moment. This causes me to isolate which is easy because everyone has their own lives and I spent the majority of my time alone. It may be a rut…a three year rut. Or it may just be the slow rhythm of my life now. In isolation those tears can rain freely and the release like the cooling rain on a sweltering day, sooths the land of my broken heart.

Grieving and mourning are used interchangeably while they really are not. I’m at the grieving part, it is the part of this emotional place done internally. In private, its the part of this process one can only do alone, and its the part that is forever. There is eternity here on earth, in our hearts. I vowed to love for eternity. Both my children and my husband and Jesus. The Word does say that God put eternity in the hearts of man…

Ecclesiastes 3 ¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

STOP.

It’s raining here today. Finally. Temps have decreased in double digits. And somehow my emotions have balanced with the barometric pressure, for today anyway.

I find it interesting how our bodies and minds are affected by the weather. The Lord has truly made our bodies and this earth and her atmosphere amazing! I’m continually in awe of the perfection of all of God’s creations. God is truly sovereign and mighty in all things.

Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read. God Bless.

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doing life tired …

go …

question: how are you? what is the correct answer? the truth? a convenient lie? silence?

do people really want me to tell them how i really am? or just return the platitude?

Sleeping woman with a cat Wladyslaw Slewinski (ca. 1896)

Lord, i am so tired.

i don’t say that as exasperation to our society’s platitudes. their desire to connect but leave the door open so they cut an run at a moments notice.

i feel like being my friend has become inconvenient for people. i’m one of those transparent, honest kind of people. my friends, yes, i really do have great friends. more than most, i have to admit; i am blessed in that area. so my friends know i’m going to tell them the truth if they ask how i am. and some still ask. others … not so much.

so what’s the answer? my answer is i’m not okay and i’m so very tired.

i function now. for goodness sake, Don has [only] been gone [just a short] three years; and my boy, my Shane, [only] a year and a half.

it’s exhausting keeping up with the inconvenience of my life. to function;  when it means getting out of bed showering and getting dressed. this level of functioning can knock me out with fatigue. i simply cannot explain the fatigue from functioning in a normal human’s day.

it’s complicated, grief driven fatigue. it’s apparently ptsd, too. i don’t know about that diagnosis though. i’m a God believing, born again, Christian who believes healing is for us, for today.

stop …

but wait … there’s more.

so i fane function. i work from home so i can cheat, but most days, after waking from 8 to 9 hours of sleep, as tired as i was when i fell  asleep the night before and get dressed. most days i force myself to do the housework, the office work and those day to day things we all do. when the day meets evening i am in physical pain and tired, bone tired.

and forgive me as  i say … i’m tired of being tired.

i want to engage in my gifts and callings regularly, but i cannot seem to motivate. plus they still bring sadness. Don bought my camera as a Christmas surprise because i love[d] photography, and he loved my photography,  i’m good … well i’m good when my subject is in natural light and stays where i {or God} put them … like flowers and the sky.

and this, my writing. he loved my writing and encouraged me. always and in all things.

so when I do these things [there are still pictures in my camera from a trip i took to Montana last july], i get sad, and a sense of tired discouragement comes over me, and i tend to stop.

honestly, these are supposed to be cathartic activities, they should soothe and help with the healing. but that’s just it …

one does not heal from the loss of chunks of the heart.

think about this [this thought makes my just ache with fatigue] … think about never seeing them again, never hearing their voices or feeling their touch. think about not being able to talk with someone you spoke with every day for thirty years [29 for my boy, but hey], or laughing with them … {i miss the sound of Don’s laughter the most. we laughed everyday for over thirty years.} think about having to jolt yourself to a stop because you step into a room and say their name to tell them something and in that next second of silence remember they are never coming home.

those thoughts would make anyone tired.

so the honest answer to “how are you?”?  i’m tired and i’m not okay … today.

fortunately, i can finally say … ‘today’ at the end of that sentence, sometimes … today. but there are still those “not today” days.

please do me a favor … if someone you know has lost a loved one; a husband, a child…[the absolutely most painful of all deaths, hands down], a parent, even a pet …

don’t ask them how they are. ask them to coffee or lunch even. ask if there’s something you do for them today.

or even better, just say hi! it’s nice to see you.

trust me it will make them feel alive and present. they will remember you were kind, and a true friend when their life was in utter tatters. just saying hi, will make them feel rested because someone had treated them normally and they didn’t have to remember to lie or try to stop the burst of tears, because they just can’t stop the tears when they think about “how” they are.

thanks for reading these musings of a tired widowed mother of the … son who died.

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Embracing the Simple Life

I’ve decided to be the authentic me. I’m weary from grieving my husband and son. I’m weary of being who others want me to be.

I’m even working slowly returning to my authentic hair color! Pulling out the red and looking for the gray.

I realize I cannot be who others want me to be, because the events of my life have me in a place of transition. I cannot make it faster. I cannot slow it down. And I certainly cannot go back. Oh, if  I could but go back . But that’s a fairytale and this is my real life.

I’m weary.

And when I think about finally embracing the authentic me, the honest and simple me, I feel peaceful. I feel like God, Himself is embracing me – the real me, the daughter He created.

My life has been utterly shattered. My little family literally cut in half in a year and a half’s time. Yet, here I stand.

Unashamed that I haven’t showered today. Okay with the fact that I was honestly relieved when our church’s game night was cancelled, so that I can remain home and embrace the solitude. Finally content to be me, finding who I am while gently shedding the mother and wife.

I am okay to stop the constant need to improve, strive and acquire. I won’t compete and grasp for those things that I don’t even really desire anymore. I don’t believe that their must be pain to gain – acquire – acceptance in this life. God said to be still. He said He would fight for me and I could keep my peace. (Ex.14:14).

This is my life. I desire humble (simple) and safe. Quiet but not necessarily alone. My husband and I did quiet together, he was a soft spoken, intelligent man. I desire to enter into that safe quiet and embrace the humbleness of solitude.

The Word says: Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10). Be still in this verse literally means: desist, cease your efforts. This is Jehovah Rāpha – The Lord your healer urging you to allow Him to be my focus, my exaltation of Him in my life. This exaltation of God heals us. It’s His child reaching for her father in her weariness.

STOP – Five Minute Friday   

 

I desire to be still. To not rush to those decisions that exalt themselves above my peace. The peace that God promises me in His Word. To not worry about cleaning my house, because everything/one tells me it must be “clean”; that my comfortable clutter and the dishes on my counter make me less than … I’m okay with my way of just maintaining the order of my house right now.

I desire a whole and healthy body, spirit and soul. And that means slowing down. Being still. Allowing God to order my life. Embracing who I really am. Passed the widow, the wife without a purpose. The mom, the mother without a child to care for. The “whoever” others expect me to be, when I just want to be me.

I’m embracing the peace of God.  It’s where I want to spend time getting centered and balanced in this 52 year old broken woman. The authentic me.

Thank you for taking the time to read my musings.

Pain.

Have you ever experienced emotional or spiritual pain so devastating that you simply didn’t believe you could survive it?

I completely understand.

I’ve read several articles and blogs that say  essentially (paraphrased and combined) that pain is a gift [from God] that motivates. This is not biblical and it frustrates me.

The Bible says that every GOOD and Perfect thing is from God. This implies that bad and flawed things are not from God.

James 1:17 “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Pain is neither good, or is it perfect.

Pain is NOT from God, though he will use it to push us forward. It is not the pain that motivates us, it is our level of faith and trust in God that motivates us toward Him and forward in our lives on His strength.

There was another concept that I read … “The pain is in the healing”. I thought this to be unbiblical also, but when researched it became clear, expanding an understanding I already held.

God doesn’t cause the pain. However, He advises us not to be surprised by what comes against us in this world we currently reside in.

And pain definitely comes against us in this world, in many different forms. Pain can also mark us, for the good or the bad. I am not simply referring to our outward appearances but more importantly who we are at our very core. Who God created us to be.

It changes us, pain does …

there are

So He uses the pain to motivate us. However, again, it’s not to persevere or endure alone, or with out earthly companions. It is to motivate us to press into Him.

Many in the bible cried out to God for relief of pain, or to ask God why; David, Job, and even the tenacious Jeremiah. Pain was bore by Adam and Eve; in the fall. Sin brings in the pain. I recently ministered to my sister saying that sin allows painful things to occur. In our bodies, our minds and even our spirits.

Pain within our physical [body], mental or emotions [our mind/soul realm] is subject to the consequence of sin in and around our lives. That’s why Peter and Paul advise us not to feel that these things are strange. It’s a product of earthly living.

Our Spirit on the other hand is experiences pain when our body and mind take us away from God. Whether from the intensity, or the frustration, or simply weariness we forget and function within our own abilities and outside of God. And sometimes we weary because the pain continues even as we press into God.

But as Peter and Paul and God have encouraged, be courageous, do not weary, do not fear .. God is with you in the midst of your most terrible pain.

I am currently experiencing devastation within my emotions. I recently lost my beloveds; my husband and youngest son. They passed within 16 months of one another. There are day when I cry out in agony. Mornings when I hear myself refusing to be awake, loathing the thought of the pain the day would hold.

It is a constant ache that rises in unannounced waves. No rhyme or reason, just a thought or a scent, a movie scene or the scene of a happy couple or parent and child. I feel pain intermingled with jealousy when I attend family or church events. It’s terrible to feel all that knowing that bitterness and contempt are attempting to take over.

I trust in God. I have faith in God. I have the knowledge of where my beloveds are. The knowledge that God holds my every tear as He comforts me. I feel like I am fighting a never ending battle, but know in my heart that God is the one fighting and that I am simply enduring the pain and pressing into Him.

I’ve been mourning for just short of two years now. A compounded grief multiplied by both losses.

Yet …

I rise each day and move forward.

I minister to others.

I nourish entire self with God’s Word.

I sit under His annointing.

I persevere while resting beneath His wings.

I know your pain today. Grief is grief and mourning is mourning … no one’s is more than another because grief is bore out of love. We mourn only that which we cherish. Even bodily pain can be known by each of us; no one more than the other.

These are not competitions. These are our lives giving us decisions to make, sometimes in the blink of an eye, changing us deeply, marking us for eternity.

What is your pain today? How can I pray for you?

I encourage you to seek God. Cry out to Him. I can confidently promise you that even before that seeking, that cry, His full attention is on you. Desiring nothing more than to strengthen and heal you while you rest beneath His wings.

My prayers are with you today. The prayers help me to heal too. God bless. 

 

Comforted

 

In vv. 17 & 18 of Revelation 1 Jesus comforts John, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and life.

You see John was completely overwhelmed with the situation he was in at the time – actually floored by the amazement of being in Jesus’ presence. And Jesus, having not changed, comforted John with the information/reminder that He, Jesus, was much bigger than the situation. That He was Omnipotent, that He had conquered death and now possessed the keys of death and life. Therefore John had no reason to fear because Jesus was in control and all things would be alright.
I know, for me, my situation these days can be completely overwhelming. All to often bringing me to my knees. Like John in the beginning of Revelation I often fall at Jesus’ feet as though dead. But as I remain in His Word He continually reminds me who He is in my life and comforts me with “Do not be afraid …”.

** For my dear readers who may still be looking to read, I’ve been gone for a LONG time. I tried to write after my husband passed, and succeeded a few times here and on A Widow’s Journey, however I was not able to sustain it. And then, after believing that no thing in the world could ever be worse than my husband battling and losing to cancer, I found that I was correct about the only thing I thought might top the level of sorrow I was experiencing, the loss of a child.

My youngest boy (man) lost his battle with heroin October of ’16 and I was slammed to my knees with the most devastating sorrow one could experience.

So I’ve been learning to breathe again. Learning to rise above the ever present grieving and live.

So here I am. I believe it’s time to write.

What has you on your knees today? Have you thought about How big God is? Have you remembered today that this is His plan and He won’t let it fail you? Have you looked up for help?

I encourage you today to open your Bible and get to know your Heavenly Father. I know that all my study of just the 1 chapter of Revelation brought me fresh understanding of just What and Who Jesus is to me … and who I am to Him. It’s comforting.