Just when you think you’ve gotten over the hump, real life happens! Yesterday morning Debbie and I headed back up to Daddy’s home. I had hoped that the worst of this grief thing was now behind me. It wasn’t. During the two plus hour drive up there, once again just like all the other trips, a heaviness began to come over me. And pulling up, it was just like all the other times. I felt like I was invading his home and plundering his things.
Daddy loved to make a garden, and when he wasn’t any longer able to make a garden he turned his attention to the plants and flowers. We were going to get some of those plants and flowers. Years ago Debbie and I shared some of ours with him and Mother. Now, some of them were going back to our home. And somehow, I feel guilty about digging them up. I made a new flower bed and that is where I will transplant them. And as I watch them grow and bloom, I’ll think about him. And this morning, I’m wondering and thinking, “As I look at them, will this pain grow deeper and will I ever get over it?”
Isn’t that absolutely rediculous to think that I will ever get “over it”? How many people have I ever told that grief isn’t something you get over–it’s something–a journey–that you get through. But never get over! And this morning I find myself wanting to “get over” something that isn’t made to “get over” but something to “get through”. I know that the only thing that is keeping me from totally falling apart is My Heavenly Daddy. In spite of me wanting to “get over” this, He is faithfully and persistently working in me to show and help me in this path of “getting through” my grief.
Today I will begin transplanting those plants that once brought Daddy such great joy. I hope I can watch them with that same joy that he had. Perhaps they will be a means of grace to help me stop wanting to “get over” my grief and enable me to be confident that I will “get through” this season. My verse from The Bible will be this:
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans chapter 15, verse 13 from The New Living Translation
May it be so Lord. May it be so!
Kingdom Pastor 