Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time…we have all started a story like this at one time or another.  When I was a kid I used to listen to my mom tell me stories that began like this.  Thinking back at these stories I am sure she made them up as she told them.  Why?  Because I did the same thing with my kids.  Sometimes I started with one fairy tale and ended with another.  But they all started with once upon a time.  Even now when I have little ones one of my biggest blessings is to tell a story.  It is often a fairy tale with once upon a time and always ends with a happily ever after…always happily ever after.  In the middle of the fairy  tale there is something to overcome, whether it be a monster or just a bad day.  And yes there is always a princess or a prince.  After Danny died, the fairy tale took on a whole new meaning.  Every day I thought of my fairy tale that once was…Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they have children, they are blessed by God but the happily ever after?  Where is that?  I kind of gave up on a fairy tales for a while…there was no happily ever after.  Or at least thats what I thought.

2 Corinthians 5:

17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 

I did not have my happily ever, because I am still here.  But Danny did get his.  None of us know what we will have to go through by the time our happily ever after arrives.  But Danny was so ready for his.  He told me on Wednesday before he died on Friday he was ready to go home, he was so tired.  So as we wait, there is all this in between.  Is it happy in between or is it depressing sadness we endure until we get our happily ever after?  I am asking because I want to know, from the experienced griever!

Jeremiah 33:3  Call to me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.

Why does God allow us to suffer?  And more importantly, why does God allow those we love to suffer?  We watch them struggle, often knowing there is no hope…No hope for tomorrow, no hope for healing of our earthly body.  But I am reminded every day that my hope is in the Lord.  He will put an end to all of our suffering.  Our ultimate healing will be when we are done with this old body and we are in the presence of Jesus!   Sometimes I get so home sick to go already.  I can remember my Mom talking about getting homesick to go to heaven.  When she would talk about it she would have tears in her eyes and a hope in her voice that I did not understand.  I often thought she had to be a little crazy to want to die and go to Heaven.  But after Mommy and Daddy died and then Danny…I find myself with that same longing in my voice, my heart and those same tears.  And I really don’t care how I get there.  I don’t care what I have to go through either.  But watching those you love go…thats a different story.  But I had to remind myself as each one that I loved went that road and journey…I had to remind myself what was waiting for them and when I did I could find myself longing for it.  The last week of daddy’s life he was bed bound and didn’t respond much except to pain.  The last 2 hours I sat by his bedside and he did not respond except to breathe.  As each breath became more shallow he slipped closer and closer to heavens gates. He began to get cold, his earthly body.  His skin began to mottle…he was just going through the motions to leave earth and enter Heaven.  After he began his final breathing I held his hand and I know he didn’t know I was there, he was cold.  But in that last moment of his life here on earth a single tear slipped down from his eyes.  I know in my heart that is the moment he met the master.  Within seconds his breathing stopped and he was gone.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8

6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

I didn’t have the pleasure to walk with Mommy her final steps but my sisters did so I know she was in good hands.  Mommy was ready to go home the day daddy died.  You don’t live with and love someone for 70 years and then just let them go.  Danny and I didn’t even have half that time and I still wonder how to do it some days. But Mommy had that hope and promise that she would see Daddy and her loved ones again.  That kept her going.  I imagine her last days were filled with so much excitement of seeing everyone that was waiting on her she just kinda forgot about us here.  Dementia had stolen her mind but deep inside I know she was there.  Occasionally we could see her.  One day I visited and I said do you know who I am?  And with that big smile that reached to the heart she said, “well I don’t know which one you are but you are one of mine!”   That’s all I needed; that was enough.  But just imagine when we get to Heaven Jesus is going to know each one of us, our names, every hurt we have ever had, every tear we ever cried, shoot He even bottled them up for us.  Now I call that taking care of the particulars! 

 Since we are speaking of fairy tales.  Just imagine when we get to Heaven and we are walking the streets of gold with our Heavenly Father.  As we leisurely stroll and chit chat, we come across a cottage and we enter.  I imagine He will have to duck his head to enter in.  Maybe its a straw hut with a cottage door, looks like one room but after you enter there are miles and miles of nothing but bottled tears all labeled with our names.  Separated into groups; tears of joy, sadness, mad tears, tears cried from pain, silly tears.  I have cried them all…which ones will be mostly on my shelf?  Right now I am afraid the sad ones are winning that race.  But thats the good thing about fairy tales.  My happily ever after hasn’t happened yet.  And what about these tears I call spirit tears?  Sometimes when I pray and worship I cry, but I am not sad, not really happy, but “holy “ tears run down my cheeks.  When I don’t know what to pray or how to pray…I cry those tears and He understands every single tear drop and He is saving them in a bottle.  THATS the tears I want mostly on my shelf.  Because as long as I am spending my time with Jesus my happily ever after is guaranteed and it makes my happily in between mean so much more than just  making me happy.  Sure I want to be happy but thats just an emotion.  I want to make a difference for someone.  I want to let the light of Jesus shine through me and help somebody.  I want to help them to get past those tears of sadness and sorrow or perhaps tears of grief.  I want to help people find those tears of joy and happiness even silliness.  Because  I am finding new things every day to laugh at til I cry.  I always manage to shed those sad tears and yes still crying those tears of grief.  I have found when I can cry with someone who has been through the same thing as me it helps us both.  This week I had that opportunity and since I don’t believe in coincidences I know it was God.  One of the patients, not even mine, but that patient needed something that I could help them with and don’t you know, he told me right off that his wife passed away during the summer. Well that opened up a whole conversation.  And yes I told him where my hope was from, Jesus Christ!  His was too.  I told him as I started in my 3rd Thanksgiving without Danny it felt like the first.  There is no difference.  I talk to people who have lost loved ones and 10 years feels the same as one.  But looking in from the outside, people think its better because of time.  I smile more and cry less….well most days. 

Praise him anyway!   I am sure you all have heard that.  Maybe when you were going through your darkest hour.  If you can just learn to praise him no matter what your circumstance, it will make your circumstance so much better.  As I was growing up I can remember various trials and struggles Mommy went through and so many times right in the middle of her storm I can recall finding her in the kitchen with arms stretched high praising God.  No matter what was coming at her!  It didn’t matter, she praised God no matter what.  It reminds me of Paul and Silas when they were thrown into prison after being beaten.  Chained with what appeared no hope and what do they do?  They prayed to God and began to sing his praises.  Their chains were loosed and they were free.

Acts 16:25-26King James Version (KJV)

25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.

26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.

I know that my God is the same today as He was for Paul and Silas.  So many times I imprison myself.  I create my own chains and often I see no hope, no chance of escape.  We all have our own prisons and sometimes they are in our own minds but they are just as real as Paul and Silas’ wounds and bleeding stripes from their flogging they received by the crowd.  If only we can raise our hands and look to the Heavens and Bless his name, our chains will fall away, everything that is keeping us imprisoned; grief, addictions, jealousy, hatred, pain- there is no limit with God.  Sing his praises and praise Him anyhow!  Sometimes when I do that I can feel the chains of bondage fall away, I feel that little spark of hope ignite and begin to burn.  There is always hope.  As the Christmas Season approaches I find myself falling into that black hole.  As hard as I try to stay out of it I slip.  I feel like Paul and Silas.  Sometimes I can feel the sting of the open wounds, still there.  I try to keep busy, Lord knows I do not have idle hands or thoughts.  How long?  I am ready!  I praise Him anyhow, everyday, no matter what comes I lift my hands.  I wish I could say that the wounds are healed, but they are not.  Will they ever be?  No I don’t think so.  Does life go on?  Yes it does.  Somedays I can honestly say the only way I get through the day is by prayer.  Memories overwhelm me and tears flow for what was and will never be again.  I still find myself wanting to share my day with him.  I often seek his approval in my life.  I wonder what would he think of the way my life is turning and twisting.  

Psalm 143:8 (NIV)

8 

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,

    for I have put my trust in you.

Show me the way I should go,

    for to you I entrust my life.                                                                     

But since Danny can’t tell me I ask God.  The Holy Spirit has been an ever present friend and one I have come to rely on since Danny died.  I should have relied on him before but truthfully I didn’t.  When I did something I prayed about it but then usually did what I wanted to do or was going to do anyway.  Not anymore!  I can’t even get out of bed and ready for work without praying about it first.  I literally have trouble putting one foot in front of the other without guidance from above.

2 Corinthians 1:12(NIV)

12 Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity[a] and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.

Regardless of your circumstances and how you feel, hang on to Gods unchanging character.  Gods grace is still Gods grace.  It doesn’t change.

As I search for my happily ever after I know I will get there…eventually but what I desperately want to know is the how and when!

John 10:3(NIV)

3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

My shepherd is calling my name and I know his voice and I’m learning every day!  He is leading me where I need to go.  I just pray I don’t miss it!  This is an exciting journey, but sometimes anxiety overwhelms me from not knowing.  I let my eyes falter.  I lose sight kind of like Peter when he walked on the water.  I know what I have to do but I’m human and humans forget so remind me!  Simple as that…remind me!  Remind me that in life the harder we try, the more opposition we meet.  Remind me that I don’t do things for me, or the church, I do them for God.  I need reminded that in the big scheme of things the BIG picture, that all these little struggles we worry and fret over?  They mean nothing.  And even on our worst day ever, there is always someone somewhere that is having it just a little worse.  On my worse day ever, Danny went to Heaven.  Its hard to even say that to make it sound bad.  That is his happily ever after, not mine.  Mine is still out there…somewhere waiting to happen.  In the meantime, I will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.  I do not enjoy Christmas for what it is today; hustle and bustle, overwhelming schedules, spending money I don’t have, but I will do what I enjoy and do it where I feel the most peace, church.  I will sing in that heavenly choir, teach those young minds and hearts the true meaning of Christmas and I will try my hardest to share the love of Jesus no matter what the devil throws at me.  Because my happily ever after does not include sitting back and letting him win.  And it definitely doesn’t mean sitting down and doing nothing.  I will do what God asks me to do.  The answer is yes…No matter what He asks…the answer is yes.  That will be my happily ever after.

Isaiah 10:27 (KJV)

27 And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.

2 Corinthians 7:1 (KJV)

7 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.