Tuesday, April 27, 2010

good grief

Just last week bryan and I attended a Missions to North America Assessment for Church Planters. It was an incredible yet intensive week. Just days before our arrival to assessment we were in Nashville visiting Addison on her 1st birthday. Yeah, for some reason we have a life where some weeks we are literally jumping in and out of intense situations. Not planned of course yet for some reason our life works that way. dark comedy of sorts, maybe. We went to her grave at the end of the weekend when we had dropped the chicks off with my parents for the next week. The cemetery where she is buried is a calm serene place until we make our way to lullaby gardens. The hard contrast of a beautiful lot of land with hills and old trees, sounds beautiful.. yet when we are there my world shatters all over again. The reality and finality of her short life just hits my heart on every side. I have found this has been good to empty my heart out, yet this past visit it was harder like a confrontation of what all had been missed in what was suppose to be her first year of life. We brought little cupcakes and tried through the hard tears to celebrate her sweet life. Good grief...really it is only good to go back to that place of hurt and investigate trying desperately to not let bitter and hurt take root in my heart. Well we got back in our van and made the trek back to atlanta that night. Only a day later we packed our bags and headed to assessment. Then a week later, returning back to life here with the chicks back from TN, reality and grief slammed me in the face yesterday morning. Welcome back right? I was physically exhausted but my heart wasn't finished with a period of pain from her birthday. Life swept me away for a week only to drop me back into a painful but necessary place.
Thankfully, a book I had pre-ordered months ago arrived the day we got back from assessment. Angie Smith's new book, I Will Carry You. A sweetly written book about "The Sacred Dance between Grief and Joy". I finished this book in a few days. I am not usually that type of reader, so you see how this book hit me. I found myself processing right along with her and bringing more pain and hurt to the surface of my heart. It was so good for me. Hard yet good grief.. necessary pain in order to make it every day. If you find yourself hurting from loss especially of a infant in or out of the womb, I assure you will feel connected to her words and story. So I need to pick myself up from my computer and take a deep breath. Time to start the day and trust God will indeed have my hurt and my heart and continue to be faithful to heal.. a shower might also be a good way to start.
love & blessings...

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for being so real and transparent. I have been thinking about you and the other girls since that last meeting. I'm praying for you, too. I'm glad you found that book. I wonder if it'd be good for me to read, too.

    You are such a beautiful family! I love your pictures. I meant to ask you at the meeting where your husband is a pastor at. My husband was a youth pastor before he took over his family's dairy farm. He graduated from Mercer (a week before we got married!). Anyway, I'm thinking about you...have a good rest of the week.

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