A Life Well Lived
1 year out sept 2021
This whole year I tried not to take up space with sadness and grief here on Facebook. For me it was too hard to process here, and spent a lot of time quietly with those who came over called and showed up. It’s not an easy thing to do. To reach out and sit with those who are grieving. I also spent a lot of time with Joes incredible family and our children. I’m sorry if I did not reach back or answer your messages as well as I should have or even manned Joes page because I just didn’t 😭 For me it was just too sacred a time to put out there publicly, and I changed my public status to private. That being said, I have not walked away from Our Passover Lamb, Bridegroom Redeemer and Lover of our Souls, I just had a lot of Questions for Him, and spent the year searching diligently for answers in the scriptures. Death IS our enemy, let’s not kid ourselves. We know that the Bible tells us Christ defeated death but he will also DEFEAT death once and for all. I wrote some notes that not sure I should post but here is one… May the Father meet you in your joy and or grief today depending on your circumstance. September. My camera roll reveals to me a harsh reality without any empathy at all: this is the first month, a year ago when there are no new pictures of Joe. That means there are no new pictures of Joe and I together, which in turn begs the question, who is that girl captured in pictures with the forced smile and the pained eyes…? Someone from a widows page I am part of wrote how in grieving your spouse you are also grieving the person you used to be. That really resonated with me. Is that why I have spent this year carefully cultivating a normalcy that when people walk into our home, they would assume nothing has really changed? When workers come into our house, I use “we” still and do not acknowledge that he’s gone. I don’t think my fish tank guy even knows, and he comes at least three times a year. It’s just too painful to speak of. I have walked around this gaping chasm in my families world laden with serving plates and with a full tank of gas in my car and dressed and ready for each and every day; there will be no ugly crying here, though silent tears slide down so often I’ve taken to carrying my eyeliner in my purse. And I would gladly advertise LUMIFY for whitening red eyes if I could be compensated with endless product. This is just the human reality of it all. As a believer I need to cling cleave and hold fast to our God who is not only the Lover of our Souls but our Bridegroom and Redeemer and the one who calls the Dead to Life. “Your dead will live; their bodies will rise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust! For you will be covered with the morning dew, and the earth will bring out the departed spirits” YHWH though Isaiah reminds us. Job declared, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another.” These are the words of hope we cling to when all is lost; from generation to generation through the scriptures we see the hope and promise of the Resurrection. We rehearse death burial and resurrection every day. Jesus himself reassured Lazarus’ sister Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.” So while the reality in which we currently live seems to be hopeless and sad, Our Heavenly Father would clearly remind us today that as believers, we Cling Cleave and Hold Fast to Him as we await the promises of a New Heaven and New Earth where tears are obsolete, and my Joe will greet all of us with his easy smile and big hugs 💕
