Loss and Life

 

Yesterday was sad.

Sad and happy.

Dark and light.

I’d been praying for this one friend.  Every morning believing for big miracles.  You see, for all my childhood up close and personal with divorce, I haven’t seen a lot of it in adulthood.  Not up close with those dearest to me.  And her news this weekend of packing her things had me down on the floor.  Heart rending with hers.

Then another dear one to me facing death up close and personal again.

I then I read about this momma who has led a brave, press into Jesus, fight against C lost her battle.  In lieu of flowers you can help support the four littles she had to leave.

And I swing wildly at the skies and cry on Bray’s chest and beg the God of all mercy to pull back a little of that veil between there and here so I can understand or put words to the heartbreak and questions and gulf of sorrow.

I kept moving.  It was Sunday and I had life and I was grateful, so we planted.  I took the eldest and we bought these boxwood plants and filled up the empty bed at the front of my house that now welcomes neighbors over.  He picked out happy yellow and white blooms to settle in front of our tree.  We dug holes and I was muddy earth from head to toe.

I took the youngest to the grocery and we bought food we could grill outside and picked out big beautiful fruit.  He asked to buy flowers to set in a vase on our beat up kitchen table, and I said, sure, because we should do that today and not wait until we’ve saved more money.

We all five sat outside and ate our juicy burgers and thanked our God for the life He has allowed us to live that involves new growth and messy faces.  We tied our Lenten thankfulness ribbons around the gate with simple offerings of gratitude that nearly leveled me all over again.

I read these words out of the pages of my Bible early this morning, these words of a prophet speaking life over a broken community commanding them to “Be Strong!”   He says:

This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’  This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.  I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty. (Haggai 2)

I don’t understand why and I haven’t seen past that veil, but I know that God works all things together for good for those that love Him (Romans 8:28) and I will trust that and say thank you for every spot of dirt and tulip bloom I have.