but it wasn't just him who died...
so many other things died too.
i have thought, however naively,
that time and distance could ease and heal,
but instead, i find myself barely able to breathe as the clock climbs nearer to midnight.
i stood outside this evening, in the dark.
i threw that trash in the bin and closed the lid
and looked up...
i felt so small and alone as i looked into the milky white of a moon half dark...
tonight, grief sinks deep.
and in the moments that breathing hurts so deeply that the tears run freely,
i find myself asking why?.
i brought out the amaryllis bulb late,
planted it in the dirt even later and the single shoot stubbornly pushing through was pale and anemic.
i wondered if it would survive.
it sits by my sink, close to that window and that stem grows higher, gets greener, tilts towards the source of light it desperately tries to get closer to.
so i turn the dirt-filled-ceramic so that what is growing grows strong and straight and i wait to see the bloom that has been promised...
and i wonder, as i look closer at the ugliness of that seed -
because i can see where it split, where life pushed through to escape the confines of death and dark and i wonder if in the cracking open, if it hurt.
i wonder about a plant with no brain, no nerve endings and worry that it feels pain?
but maybe it's because the ugly of that morning,
where more than just a man died;
love died,
dreams died,
plans died,
hope died,
a father died,
who we were died,
and it hurt.
and moving on,
watching the old split open to let the new come through
is painful.
and yet...
He uses even the pain-full to turn us to Him.
not content to allow us to grow bent over and bitter
He allows that which leaves us feeling dizzy
and confused
and lost
and grieving
so that we find He is the Only stability in a world so crooked and broken.
how He loves!
my world can be shaken,
but rooted in Him, i am not moved.
life can spin and dance and warble and swim with tears,
but it is His Life that breaks through what is dead and pulls me closer to Him.
grief was birthed the morning he hung himself on that tree,
but so was something new.
and while it appears ugly at times,
He has promised life,
abundant and full.
and soon, i'll see it bloom...
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
ephesians 3:16-21
