This space has been quiet lately. Silent really. My family has been gathering around my great-Grandma Koeller’s bed and waiting for the Lord to take her HOME…and I just haven’t had much to say about that. Or about anything else, really.
This isn’t a daily deals blog, or a food blog, or a homeschool blog–it’s just a LIFE blog and when our LIFE is quiet, the blog is quiet. I don’t really have much for “evergreen” content (as they call it in the blogging world)–words that matter in any space or any time. Everything here is tied to the moment, to the season, to the year that we are living in. And in this moment, I don’t have much to say.
Except this…
I have learned that grief is very little about the loss and mostly about the living without.
All the moments in life when I would turn to my parents–every hurt, every triumph, every moment of heartbreaking beauty–they are not there. A comforting word, a hug, that place forever called home…that is gone.
Losing them is a trauma I have to deal with through over-active mother-fears and late-night-phone-call-anxiety and crazy mood swings any time I have to drive Route 95 at night.
Living without them, is a cross I bear daily.
It is not about them, it is about me. The me that is still growing…growing up…figuring out life…now alone. And there are always people offering to be there, but my heart doesn’t just want someone. It wants them. Every day.
And they are not there.
And the Lord has been there for me. I have cast my cares upon Him. I have come to Him for rest. I have taken shelter under His wings. I have stood upon His rock. And I have been protected, and comforted, and given peace for my weary soul.
Yet, I am still here. Still simply human. Still only flesh. And sometimes calling on the Lord takes faith–great heaping mounds of faith. Sometimes there is an ocean of earthly pain between where I am and where I should be, and crossing it seems to takes a faith that I don’t have. So I curl up in a little ball…I pull all my little chicks into the nest and hunker down…I fix cereal for dinner and we watch movies on school nights and I lock the doors when no one is looking and I go to bed early because maybe tomorrow will be better.
And I wait.
And sometimes the Lord parts the seas.
And sometimes He sends a boat.
And sometimes He says “MOVE.”
And sometimes He just says, “Ok, I’ll be here tomorrow, too.”
Usually, when this space is quiet, that is where I am. Usually at this time of year, that is where I am. Today, that is where I am.
Perhaps tomorrow I will venture out. Perhaps tomorrow I will be lifted up by sweet prayer. Perhaps tomorrow that ocean won’t look so big, or feel so dark and cold. Perhaps tomorrow…but today I’m simply quiet.
Sometimes that’s what grieving looks like.
