It’s one of those weeks where I already waved my white flag…yesterday.  One of those weeks where you let go of unrealistic expectations for yourself and you go ahead and swallow your pride and ask for help and accept the fact you and your family will probably eat far too much fast food this week and see each other less than usual and your normal routine will be tossed out for the week.  One of those weeks where you let your toddler play with the nail clippers because A) It’s keeping him busy and quiet and B) As long as he can’t get them open surely he won’t cut his own toe off.  And by letting it go…by already surrendering it up…I feel freer already.

I sat last night with friends who experienced great loss this weekend.  I have not cried that hard in a long time.  You know the cry…the one which leaves you red faced, head throbbing and flecks of tissue paper scattered on your face.  I studied my friend’s face over and just soaked it in and her look of surrender…of shock…of “what the hell just happened”.  And we spoke life into her and her husband, even though my life words are so different now.  They are…I’ll never say I know how you feel because I don’t…and…I’m just so sorry…and…this totally sucks…and…life won’t be the same, but God will…and…I love you…and…do you want another whoopie pie 🙂  Those are life words now after experiencing grief.  I refuse to candy coat and say I get it because even still I just don’t…and that’s okay.  What we need is honesty and we need to be willing to stand in the gap for one another in the crappiest of times.  We need to commit to spurring one another along in love.  We need people to be the hands and feet of Jesus…and offer up His love and empathy…not fancy words and unrealistic notions and saying things you don’t really mean or plan on following through with.  I believe we serve a God who wants us as we are in every season and emotion…whether it be anger or bitterness or disbelief or doubt or just flat out defeated.  He wants and loves us as is.  He understands how hard this life and this world can be.

You know it’s a crazy week when you kick your Monday off with speech therapy and then baking 5 gooey butter cakes.  I’m such an emotional eater and by default I automatically assume baked goods are everyone’s love language.  When something like this weekend happens I immediately get time warped back to my Mom’s crazy week.  All the ups and downs, but God has been so faithful to remind me He did not leave me where I was.  I told my friend that last night.  Oh my goodness how bad it is going to suck and hurt and for a long time, but…but, one day you will be able to look back and see how He never left and how He nudged you, pushed you and carried you through what Satan had planned for destruction, but thank God…He is the King of Kings…and He had another plan.

As I stirred gooey butter cake batter after gooey butter cake batter after gooey butter cake batter I looked around and realized I am slowly turning into my mother…kitchen a wreck, powdered sugar strewn all over my counter, butter everywhere.  Tending to hearts by way of 9×13 pans.  And all I could think about was God’s written words to us in Isaiah 61:1-3

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.”

Those words are not empty.  Those words are not meaningless.  They are truth and life and game changers.  They are God’s words to us…His testament…His promises…He will not leave you where you are.

Last night we so enjoyed our date night.  It was way over do.  Great friends.  Music.  Humidity induced sweat.  No children.  Good food.  I even got to see my cousin Emily and her fiancé Adam…we always run into them at concerts.  It was a good night.  We went to a free concert in Nashville…two artists being Wild Cub and The Head and The Heart.  We love music.  Josh Kelley, you will be shocked to know, can really jam on a bass if he wants too.

Since Mom died sometimes I have these really emotional moments at concerts.  Sounding a little crazy?!?!?  I remember at a NeedToBreathe concert I cried so hard when they played These Hard Time.  Every morning for 8 days when I pulled into the parking garage at whatever hospital Mom was in, I would put my earbuds in, hit play on my iPod and march through the hospital towards her room with this absolutely blaring in my ears.  It was my anthem.  It was my anthem on Mom’s behalf.

“Give me motivation.  Give me all my hearts desires.  Show me something gorgeous.  Show me till my eyes get tired.  Give me all the drums and show me how to play them loud.  Show me how to move when I can’t feel that you’re around.”

I’m just 3 months out from the 3 year mark of her leaving.  It does get better, but it gets hard in weird ways…in ways you never saw coming.  And actual time changes.  Once I thought three years sounded like a long time, but when dealing with grief…time loses a bit of its weight.  Weeks felt like minutes.  Months felt like weeks.  And years shorten up real quick.  You think to yourself “Surely at the one year mark my heart will be healed” and at least for me I found that not the case at all.  Things just changed.  Around the 2 year mark I began to notice the differences in the places I had been in my healing…the points God had brought me through…from point A to B to C to D and so on.  He had been ever so slowly healing and moving me…sometimes me going on my own with His nudges and sometimes He had to just carry me.  It’s a hard journey.  One which is still not easy, but it gets better…more manageable and I’ve learned to dwell in thankfulness for where God has taken me and grown me and healed me, the hope I have in Him, where I’ve seen unmistakable true beauty in the ashes, instead of camping out in the self pity and as if the world owes me something for my heart ache.  I’ve learned gratitude and compassion and empathy and deep thankfulness.  Do I still have bad days?  Yes.  Absolutely yes.  It’s going to happen.

We’ve had a few teary moments lately with sadness about school and changes in our house and missing people.  One night Harper was weepy and I laid beside her in her bottom bunk and asked what was wrong.  She began to cry and tell me, “I don’t remember how to to get to Grammy’s house.  I used to know and now I can’t remember.”  This is the grief territory were in now.  This place where time is passing and now you realize 3 years has gone back to being a long amount of time when someone you love is missing all which is taking place in that time frame.  We’re forgetting and things are becoming foggy and hazy.  I spend more time than I’d like to admit trying to remember exactly what she was like.  In some instances she seems clear as day and in others like a dream, not real.  So we’re working on supporting and loving and reminding.  I laid in Harper’s bed and with my pointer finger in the air drew her the map to Grammy’s house…talking the ride out, noting landmarks along the way and describing her house with the sloped down hill driveway they ran down to reach the Easter eggs she hid in her  backyard the last Easter we spent with her, to the weeping cherry tree beside her front porch with the deep red front door.

Last night when The Head and The Heart started playing their song Rivers and Roads I had one of those moments…those sentimental moments.  In a sea of strangers on a plot of grass in the Tennessee humidity around some of my favorite people I sang in my heart and soaked up the moment.  I listened as the crowd sang and for a moment just closed my eyes tight.

“Rivers and roads, rivers and roads, rivers till I reach you.”

And I thanked God for where he’s brought me…for not leaving me where I was, for where He’s brought our family and how He keeps after us…taking, moving and carrying us from place to place…reaching after us…for healing and reminding and comforting.  I thanked Him for the assurance I will see her face and hug her neck again.  I know another year from now I will look back in gratitude again for how He’s changed me yet again.  He is so good.  And merciful.  And hope-filled.  And love.  And does not leave us where we are.