As Matt's working over-time preparing for graduation and year end activities (how is it time for all that?), the rest of us are persevering through the last 5-6 weeks of school with some things ahead and some things behind. Some kiddos have been sick, and while it never hit me full force, fighting it has had me dragging. I'm a lot better about grace for others than I am for myself.
Other things I'm learning--since Greg hard-wired it into my brain years ago while living with he and Cathie in Haiti that ALL hard things can be used for learning--are that I don't HAVE to get over and move past all things. As I follow in Dad's footsteps, not coming up until I hit the wall, I've been realizing that some things I don't have to overcome (not talking about sinful hurts or habits, here!). I can absorb them, instead. They can be a part of who I am as I carry on, changed by them.
Every moment I have missed Dad, I simultaneously find myself missing Haiti. I'm sad...and I want to go home. I have been trying for three years to "get over that", as if it's wrong. As if this must be my place if this is the place He has me. It's always felt like I must decide that a different place is now my place.
But maybe it's ok that at the end of every day, each week, each season, that Haiti is where I want to be. Haitian church is the church I long to worship in...Haitian friends and family are the ones I want to comfort me...and the ways that Haitian culture does. Maybe it's ok that I want my weekends and my children and my ministries and my evenings and my morning coffee to be in Haiti. Maybe it's ok that Haiti is my place, even as I find Him faithful and good and present and at work right here...even as He has clearly led me here.
No room for pity. No room for bitter. No room for disobedient. No room for complaint.
Just. Comfortable with it, instead of always battling. Putting it on instead of feeling like I have to burn it.
Maybe I don't have to "get over" Dad. Man, I see his picture, and it hurts so badly and so deep and so past, present and future it takes my very breath away.
I don't have to push past this, refusing to take a breath until I hit that wall. I don't have to make it be ok, nor grind through it like it's all good.
It can change me, instead. Maybe I can slip on the loss of my parents and let it shape me instead of leaving it on the floor, refusing to allow it to as I battle to be fine and just keep going.
Still no room for pity, or bitter, or despair. Just room to breathe.
Maybe?
Tell me if I'm wrong. Or making no sense.
Or maybe you need to hear that these losses--the deep sadness over kids far from the Lord, desperate missing of people who we loved deeply, jobs and times and places so sweet to us and never to be returned to--are ok to carry with us.
'long as we trust Him with them.
It's been a hard few weeks. There are some aches and burdens He's allowed in my current life I'd very much so like to not carry.
I'm probably going to have to trust Him with those, too.
Stacey, I always enjoy reading your blog, and have prayed for all of you along your journey. You are correct-a hard loss DOES change us. I've lost both my parents, and more recently, and unexpectedly, our daughter. Brutal and gut wrenching. I am forever changed by her loss. Many people don't understand this - and want you to "get over it". There's no getting over it-our whole lives and family are forever changed. My husband and I are determined to forge together in faith, keeping our eyes on Jesus. It's not easy, in fact, it's a roller coaster of mostly downward spirals, but we are comforted with the knowledge we will be reunited one day with our loved ones in our eternal home. Embrace the change in you because of your loss and hold fast to faith in our loving God. May God bless you all.
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