Well....this past Sunday marked 3 years to the day since Mike died. I started this blog one year after and it has been a great place to pour out my thoughts, hurts, insights, disappointments and struggles that resulted from God saying, "No" when prayers were sent, fervently and repeatedly, asking him to heal Mike and keep him with us on this side of heaven.
Jesus stayed very true in that He held me and the girls in His hands throughout Mikes illness as well as right afterwards. I really believe we walked, literally, on the prayers of our family and friends during those initial days and weeks right after Mike died and during the short 4 months he fought hard to beat the cancer.
But, as my blog clearly showed....my own walk with Him was subsequently and seriously de-railed after the initial fog and shock wore off. A sense of being betrayed and hurt by my best friend (Jesus) replaced the gratitude and thankfulness and begat another loss...that of my close walk with my Lord.
Which left me dealing not just with one loss but two! And living a life that had become completely upended. So.....those of you who read and followed along my blog...got the joy that comes from watching me traverse through the hurt and pain that followed Mikes death and the separation from Jesus that I felt and struggled, albeit belatedly...to restore.
And I can honestly say that now...I am back in a bond with Jesus that is a heart bond...not just an intellectual one...finally and thankfully again. And with it...comes the recognition too that, while I am never going to stop shedding tears and missing Mike..and that it WILL, for now, continue to happen sporadically every day....I am "okay". The missing and sadness that now happens doesn't leave me in the munched, scrunched, pounded to a pulp and yet very empty-state of heart as it used to leave me. It's not a fun few moments when the memory and loss hits...but it doesn't hold the same whollup. It feels more like getting hit out of the blue, several times a day...with a wadded up down comforter. You feel it. It's there. And tears come. But there's padding now.
I believe it's because my relationship with Jesus is restored. I am beyond words able to describe what that is like...if you don't know it. If you have it yourself, then you understand. So I spend much of each day chit chatting with Mike during the whallups...and the Lord in between and during them also. And so my life...is good.
The future does not look bleak as it once did. Life has "gone on". Not past Mike. But still forward. Katie is about to get married and will move to Michigan. Amie has been performing in Dollywood now for months and will continue to be here...and gone again. So I know now what life without Mike and ...without the girls...is like. Not terrible. Not what I wanted and dreamed and thought was going to be my life. But...not terrible. I am going back to school...will get my Masters and do Nurse Practitioner-ing. Changing up how I handle my rentals. And may end up doing who knows what....but always, hand in hand with Jesus and talking to Mike.
We'll see if romance is something the Lord has for me someday. Would be nice. Not the cure all for sure though. And we'll see where I end up living...doing...etc. I'm only 56. There's a lot of life out there. And I certainly hope that with what the Lord has left me...I do something with it that
will help Him say, "Well done, good and faithful servant".
Maybe missions or indian reservations or something of that sort as an N.P. will be possible. Or maybe it will just be serving in the myriad of ways in my day to day life that God opens up to each of us...if we open our eyes to see the opportunities. So...that will be my goal for now.
Up to this point, my goal was to get my relationship with Jesus back on track. I am
able to say... "check".
And the coping with widowhood...well...that goes on. It just doesn't require a blog anymore. So...closure is a good thing. Bye Blog. I truly hope that someone, somewhere, sometime reads this...and finds it has helped them through their own walking through grief. Because it sucked to not really have anyone else my age who truly "got it" And I guess you never find anyone who truly will "get" anyones individual walk, other than God....cause the age you are, the quality of the relationship you had, the length of time of that relationship, and just all the little aspects that were unique to it and to you...will make it different from anyone elses grief. Sigh. I guess that is why the only one who will ever truly understand what a journey like the one I've been walking is like...is the hand I'm now holding onto very very tightly. Because without Jesus, the coping...is so hard. And with Him...the coping ...is so hard, but so much better.
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