Friday, March 19, 2010

Conflicting Days

Today is a day that will carry joys, sorrows, tears, laughter, good and bad. For each of us, it will be a different day with different experiences.

I took my mom and her husband to the airport bright and early this morning. They are headed to BC because today is the day my step-sister and her family will bury their baby girl. Little Naomi was born prematurely at 2 lbs, 11 oz, with more problems than a baby can survive, she had Trisomy 18 (causing a hole in her spine and an under-developed heart), Spinal Bifida and Club Foot. We have known she wouldn't live since the first ultrasound but it doesn't change that it hurts. That this precious little gift could only be enjoyed for a few days before she left our lives. Today is a day of great sorrow for my family, but it will be interspersed with happy moments.

That's the way of it. We grieve while we laugh sometimes. We love while we are angry. We are a people of mixed and conflicted emotions and actions.

Today, I will grieve with my family from afar. I will do all I can for them from this distance, I will love, I will remember, I will cry. But most of all, I will pray for them and share their burden in whatever way is possible. I wish I could do more.

I cannot imagine what my step-sister is going through today. To be perfectly honest, I don't even want to try because I know that kind of pain would be overwhelming and devastating. I weep for her, and today I will weep with them, even though I am at a distance.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

I am not alone.

Tonight, as I was resettling my youngest after he fell out of bed, he was lying in bed crying as I sat on the floor beside him. I tried holding and even rocking him, but he was not calming down so I put him in bed and sat beside him. As I sat there I realized, he doesn't realize I'm still here. He can't see me, he can't hear me, yet, here I am.

That is just like how I am with God sometimes. I sit and cry, and wonder why He's not beside me, when He is. It's just dark in my world and He's being comforting with His presence, even when I'm unaware that He's there. He's not gone, He hasn't left me alone, He is waiting for me to calm down so He can offer comfort and bring peace. My not recognizing His presence doesn't erase it.

I cling to His promise that He will never leave me nor forsake me. In my dark hours, when I feel alone, I remember that and I know that no matter how I feel, He is with me.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Year

A new year, a new start. Some of the starts are newer than we want them to be, some of the endings are more painful.

Christmas was a painful one this year. I've had worse, but I've definitely had better. A time of renewal, of refreshing, of change. Many questions have arisen, where do I go from here? How do I continue moving forward? What will I need to take care of myself in the long term?

There are a lot of decisions to be made, a lot of things to settle in my life this New Year. Hopefully it will be a good year, a year of renewal and recharging the
batteries and refreshing relationships.

I question my own strength, yet I know that my strength is what I allow it to be. I have the strength to do all that is before me, to be all that I need to be. Some days I don't want it, I don't want to need that much strength. Regardless, I need it and I have it. This is a good opportunity to stretch my wings, expand my horizons and exercise my strength. Just because it is a place I'd rather not be in does not change that I have what it takes or that it is the best place for me to be.