July 1, 2015

So, today is my Mom's birthday.

Or, it would be.

She would be 76 today. Instead, she has been gone from us and enjoying Heaven for nearly 17 years. I really miss her. She had undiagnosed heart disease, and she died of a sudden and massive heart attack when she was just 59 years old.

As long as I live, I will remember her on her birthday...and, in my prayers, I will ask God to tell her I love her.

I don't know if things can even work that way...but whatever. Nothing is impossible with God, right?

Something just changes in you when your Mom dies.

I had a good mom...but I imagine it would be the same if I'd had a bad mom...because we are shaped by how we are raised, for the good and for the not-so-good.

My Mom linked me to the past. She linked me to my Grandmother and all of the other relatives. My Grandmother lived in such torment over the unexpected and sudden death of my Mom...her only daughter...she just couldn't recover. Every day after my Mom's death was a struggle, and every day after my Mom's death was full of questions.

Well, full of one question, mainly.

"WHY?"

Parents aren't supposed to out-live their children.

My Mom also linked me to my Dad. She was the one who led him to the Lord...she was the one who kept up with his family and all of that. She also linked me to the present. She kept our family unit together. She was the one who called us every week or two, and kept us update on everything that was going on with everyone in the family.

When my Mom died...we lost a link. A big link. And when my Grandmother died a few years after that...well, we haven't been able to put things back together. Not the way they were, anyway.

But God, He never left us...and He took our broken hearts and pieced them back together...truth be told, He is still piecing us back together.

I hope that we are letting His light shine through those broken places in our lives.

So thankful for family and friends who have stood in the gap for us...for me. I have never lived near any of my family, so my friends became my family. And Jim's parents became my family. And even tho I appreciate them and love them with all my heart...they can't replace or restore what I've lost.

Only Jesus can fill that hole in my heart, and it's still there all these years later. I just pretend that it's not.

Is this you?

If so, there is no easy way out of grief, except through it. And everyone grieves in their own way and in their own time. Seek Him. I mean, that's the main thing.

I was in such a haze after she died, but I had these 4 kids and a husband and a house that needed to be maintained and kids who needed to be fed and homework that needed my help and a thousand other things. And I just...did them. Like I knew to do them. Even when I didn't feel like it.

The same needs to go for your spiritual life. Read your Bible...pray...attend a Bible Study...talk to a friend. Do what you know to do...even when you don't feel like it. Go back to the basics. Make it simple. At the beginning, your prayers might consist of "please help me." Maybe that's all you can get out, and that's okay. The Bible says that when we don't know how to pray, the Spirit of God intercedes for us.

That is so comforting to me. I hope it is for you, too.

My Mom? She knew Jesus. She believed in Him, trusted in Him, lived for Him. I will see her again one day!

"In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;" Romans 8:26