Grief.

Late nights of counting sheep, can’t sleep.  I want to scream.  The king sized bed is empty.  I am a mess.  I miss you like crazy.  I can’t catch my breath.  I am angry.  I am trying to stay strong.  I don’t get why you couldn’t be here.  I am angry at you for fishing that night.  I am angry at you for having to check the jug lines one more time before you planned to come in.

That one more time took you.

I can’t breathe sometimes.  I am suffocated with anger, fear, loneliness, guilt, memories, love that I can no longer give.

Grief.

But I have to be strong.  There is a little blue-eyed, blonde-haired baby girl that looks up to me.  She grins and my world is right again… for a moment.  And then I remember I will never see her in your arms again.  The lump in my throat returns.  I gulp it back.  Blinking back my tears rapidly so I don’t feel the hot liquid run down my cheeks.  Because then I can’t stop the streams.

Grief.

I question God.  I used to think I should never do that.  But now I find myself screaming questions at Him.  He loves me the same.

Grief- such a small word.

People use the word ‘Grief’ so loosely.  Like you can just get over grief.  Or grieve faster.  It doesn’t work that way.  Grief is its own entity.  I find myself grieving my husband’s untimely death and my marriage.  The unity I had with one person out of 7-billion people on this planet, is no longer intact.  I’m grieving the loss of my team.  My team was broken.  My family was broken.  These are not pity words.  These are raw words.  How does someone come up from this?  Truly rise up from such devastation?  Some mornings I lie in bed and have to talk myself in to getting out of bed and face another ‘great’ day.  Because I am a Christian- everyday should be ‘great’, right?  Wrong.  Not realistic.  I’m craving to be transparent and real.  Life is hard.  This season has been dark and hard.

This season has been lonely.  I am craving my best friend.  My heart aches with thoughts of never running my hands through his hair again.  Or holding his hand.  Kissing his lips.  I beg God to answer me why?  I yearned to be married at a young age.  I waited for Cody to come into my life- my ‘to be’ Husband.  Impatiently waited I might add.  I loved being a wife.  His wife.  He challenged me in ways I never knew I needed to grow.  That’s what marriage is supposed to do.  Challenge you, make you more holy, reflect the image of Christ.  God redeemed our marriage through dark seasons.  Both of us had failed one another.  But God.

But God… Those two words are beyond powerful.  I no longer have a ‘But God’ in my marriage.  I no longer have a marriage.  I no longer have my daughter’s father.

Grief.

Have you ever hurt so much that you wanted to crawl out of your skin?  Out of your being?  Just vanish into thin air… Just to eliminate the pain in your soul?  A deep pain in your spirit that you can literally feel your physical heart throbbing and aching.  The pain is so intense it’s shocking to your body.  I’ve thought in those moments how someone could literally die of a broken heart.  I hate those moments.  I beg God to take the pain away.  I’ve begged God to take the memories away.  That sounds so cold, but the memories are a flood and I can’t think straight, or function.

Grief.

The following words depict grief so purely to me.  “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love.  It’s all the love you want to give but cannot.  All of that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hallow part of your chest.  Grief is just love with no place to go.”

Tragedy changes you.

Grief changes you.

It makes you bleed with rawness.

It brings realness to life.

One of the most beautiful things in life is to feel.  To feel love.  To feel emotion.  To feel passion.  To feel life.  God made us emotional beings who have the capability to feel on dimensional levels.  I used to run from my emotions, for fear of looking weak, for fear of looking ‘human’.  I am learning to embrace those feelings.  To become empowered by them.  To allow these roller coaster of emotions to deepen my relationship with Christ.

I changed on January 14, 2017.  I will never be the same person I was.  One of the things I am truly grateful for through this- is that change.  I saw myself from the outside looking in.  I didn’t like what I saw.  I saw someone who rushed through life.  Who was selfish.  Who took loved ones for granted.  Losing someone you didn’t think you could live without knocks all of your ‘props of life’ out from under you.  All you have standing in front of you is your faith and the choice to choose hope in a more than hopeless situation through the eyes of the world.

I am still here.  I ask God why?  His answer… To bring glory to Him.  It’s not about me.  I find the ultimate freedom in that revelation.  To bring glory to Him.  My time spent on this earth is to bring glory to my Heavenly Father.  In good days, in bad days.  In seasons of harvest and in seasons of loss… I am to bring glory to Him.  Even when it hurts.

I surrender.  Every day, I surrender.  Every day I have to choose to LIVE.

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God

Photo by Cori Lusk Ford

As he hurriedly walked through the house with a level and tape measure in one hand and his phone to his ear with the other, he stopped to smile at me as I held the sleeping body of our 8-month old baby girl.  He was on the phone with a project coordinator lining up contracts for our telecommunications company.  His business call ended.  His smile turned to glossy eyes as he admired what he called a “beautiful sight”.  He updated me on the content of the business call- as I was now our Office Manager.  We were more a team than ever.  We were new parents who both had the privilege of working from home—which is where we both desired to be.  With one another and the new edition to our family.  How blessed we were.  And we discussed that often.  Nothing was short of the Grace of God.  During the hustle and bustle of this day—Cody asked me a question that still crosses my mind on the regular, “If something were to happen to me, can you handle all of this?”  I looked at him, and immediately shook my head “no”.  His next words will never leave my mind… “My Wife Can.”

He was referring to life.  He was referring to the remodel of our home.  He was referring to taking care of our precious baby girl who was demanding of attention.  He was referring to running our telecommunications company.  He was referring to the upkeep of our home, vehicles, and our fur babies.  He was referring to the life we had created.  Could I handle this without him?  What an odd question to ask.  And just weeks before he departed from this earth.

“My Wife Can.”

Such three simple words.  These three simple words have changed my mentality these last 6-months.

His Wife could.

I am she.

I can.

So many times a day, doubt seeps over me.  I second guess my every decision of the last 6-months.  I doubt my newly single parenting skills.  I beat myself up over the slightest failure- or what I see as a failure.  But then I hear those words—“My Wife Can”.  And I stand a little taller.  My God confidence arises again.  I am called for a time such as this.  For whatever reason—This is the path the Lord has ordained for my feet to walk.  So I shall.  With faith, with hope, with peace, with joy.  Faith, hope, peace, and joy.  Those four words, those four beautiful action words seem impossible to encompass during seasons of grief.  But they’re not.  With God, all things are possible.  I am living proof of that.  That is not an arrogant statement.  It is a testament to the living power of Jesus who resides in me.  In reference to we are the bride of Jesus and He is the Bridegroom—I can hear my Lord saying, “My Bride Can”.  We are the Bride of Christ.  That is beautiful.  That is all-consuming to grasp.  I am the Bride of Christ.  You are the Bride of Christ.  I am not alone during this ‘aloneness’ season of life.  And with Him…I can.

If my soul is stirred with the memory of my Husband’s voice proclaiming “My Wife Can”, oh… how much more my soul and spirit awaken when I hear the sweet and powerful voice of my Lord decreeing “My Bride Can”.

“For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.”  Isaiah 54:5

I Trust my God, I Trust my God, I Trust my God.