When We Must Say Good-bye

Life is short. Why play games. When you like someone, say what you mean. Those final good-byes will never be again. Live with no regrets. One day you will wish you had. And there are no do-overs. It's final. The last breathe is gone.

The feelings come in like a flood. No words can bring comfort. Everything is numb. It's a moment that stops in time. No more 'hello, how are yous'. No more joking around. No more smiles or laughter of the one you love. Only emptiness and numbness are to be found.

The sting is only for a moment. When the burning subsides, life will go on. But from that moment and each moment that follows, life has made a turn that will be different from this moment on. Your loved one has taken their last breathe. And it seems they have taken your last breathe with them. It's hard to breathe. It's hard to move on. You want so badly to hang on. But there is no hanging on, only moving forward.

The tears come and life comes to a stop. It's moving forward that we must do. To move forward feels that we are leaving our loved one behind, but yet in actuality, they have gone before us. They have taken their last moment of breathe, to live life eternally before our Heavenly Father. No more pain, no more suffering. They are rejoicing before their Maker.

Feel the pain. Cry the tears. Walk through the grief. The Maker is there for you and me. His name is Jesus and He catches every tear we cry. He heals the pain we feel. He will always walk beside. Call out to your Heavenly Father. He is the Great Comforter.

Time is a factor. Moving forward requires strength. Strength that is taken when a loved one dies. Strength that is precious to be able to stand boldly. Strength that is a gift to live this life again.

Death is final but living life for Jesus is for eternity. Here on earth and for those who have gone before. Cry out to Jesus!!

Death Paralyzes

When death comes to your door step, it can paralyze one's life. Life doesn't seem to make sense any more, everything that you have lived up to, to this point in your life has just been thrown out the window. Memories, thoughts, actions of one's life depend upon the people they have around them. The people around you are the ones who have helped form your thoughts and actions of who they are. Your energies are now for survival and moving forward. Where is God in the midst of death?

Grief comes in like a storm. Emotions shut down. Life stops.

Where is God in the midst of death

God is in every pain we feel. God is in the depths of our hearts. God is in the very fiber of our being. He is the One who created us. He is the One who made us in His image. What we feel and what we walk through is not foreign to God. He sent His son to die on a cross; to shed His blood for our sins.

Where is God in the midst of death

Jesus was sent here to die. His purpose was to die on a Cross so that we would be forgiven and walk freely with our Heavenly Father, who created us. Death is not far off from the One who knew it so closely.

Where is God in the midst of death

God grieved when He knew of Adam's disobedience in the Garden of Eve. The apple of knowledge brought a death to our relationship with God. He knew what He would need to do to once again bring life into His creation of mankind. A grievance of His heart to send His One and Only Son to die. A death that would bring eternal life for those who believe.

Where is God in the midst of death

Nothing is new to God. He is in the midst of death. He will comfort and bring joy if we allow Him. If we are able to let go and trust. Allowing the death to bring life for those who experience it. All will at some point in their life experience death. It doesn't become real till it hits close to home.

Where is God in the midst of death

Allow death to hit your heart but also allow your heart to be open to the life that only Jesus can do. Allow for the healing to come. As quickly as a life can change in a moment of time, Jesus can also bring the healing and comfort that we need.

God is in the midst of death. Do you feel His tears? Do you feel the touch of His Hand? He is here.

'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' 1 Corinthians 15:55  

Changes

Once again, death faces me in my thoughts and memories. On April 14, 2015, my spiritual papa, Bob Lichty passed away. About a three week warning with just being diagnosed with lymphoma, a small stomach ulcer and a small hiatus hernia. His body continued to get weaker and ended up in the ER. After a pet scan and a cat scan, they found a perforated intestine saying he needed emergency surgery. Paul and I headed to Williamsburg, barely making it there before they took him back for surgery. He was supposed to wake up, but the next day, we needed to say our good-byes.


So, once again, I face changes in my life. Changes that I would have preferred not to have to deal with but changes. As I look back and reflect upon this past year, Bob and Vicki were very much a part of my settling in Virginia Beach. Almost all the holidays, birthdays, etc. revealed photos of them joining us. Markings on the calendar of them spending a day or two or however many days they would stay. A week in Myrtle Beach over Christmas, memories of mine and Paul’s first anniversary in Nags Head with Bob and Vicki coming to a couple of nights.

Once again, my life has changed. When there is death, life is around the corner, but yet, I’m still looking and waiting. New life, as some like to say a ‘new normal’ but I myself don’t like those words.

There are still boxes that remain unopened from my life altering moments of deaths before. Stuff that still needs to be sorted through, but yet, they remain unopened. Probably a reflection of one’s life with all that we live through, it is the way we deal with life and compartmentalize our lives. Full of stuff, some good, some bad, and others that we wonder why we kept at all.

Purposely and intently needing to set the time a part once again for sorting and making sense of a life that God has deeply touched, but yet, needs continued healing.

All during this same time period, we had workers here siding and fixing up our house. As they side the house and make it all pretty, it is still the same house. All the changes have not changed the location, the shape, or what it is. It is still a house. It still functions. It has just been fixed to preserve the life that it has and for the purpose the folks who live in it.

Some changes are good and some changes are bad. But it is what we do with the choice that we have to face each day. God has given us life. He gives us grace and strength in times of trouble. On the outside, we may look as though nothing has changed but on the inside we may be crumbling to the ground, looking for answers to make sense of the path that lies before us. While yet, living life to the fullest.

Reasons for Writing

The reason I'm writing has been impressed upon my heart for a long time. Thinking of different subjects to write about but never knowing for sure which way to go. Death seems to be a common factor in my life in recent years and with another significant I find myself at the threshold of grieving.

My first experience of death was May 1982 with my grandma but soon to be overshadowed by my sister's tragic death on August 14, 1982. She was only 21. I saw life taken so quickly. Someone who loved life and was a friend to many. Working at our local bank and winning her baseball game, even the night of the tragic accident on Friday the 13th. I don't like to be superstitious but when a Friday the 13th rolls around, it does bring back memories of the night my brother came breaking into our home to get my parents from a deep sleep.

I had just turned 17 on August 2. My AFS (American Foreign Exchange Student) sister was visiting that summer. I remember crawling back into mom and dad's waterbed with my sister, Cindy, so we could be close to the phone if and when they would call us. The next day, we found ourselves in Peoria at the hospital, where I saw my sister lying motionless with her eyes taped shut. Only to have to say our good-byes.

A life taken way too soon. Thoughts of 'Why wan't it me?' She was the fun, loving, outgoing one. I was the shy, quiet, farm girl, whose best friends were her furry pets. And later, learning after I had graduated high school that classmates thought I was stuck up.

Now my thoughts, I wish that folks would not judge so quickly of those who are shy. I, personally, think I'm quite funny and love to laugh. But yet, only a few who really get to know me will ever see that side. One of my favorite things to do is make people laugh. But yet, if I'm around sarcastic people, they will never see that side of me. I've learned too many times of the slander and jokes that people think are funny when they aim it as a person, rather than an object. All for those around to hear the laughter, but yet, forgetting the pain that they may be causing the person of whom they have just ridiculed.

So, yes, death and grieving have touched my heart and life. So here I sit, letting the thoughts flow through my mind, down to my finger tips to write from a heart saddened once again to process life with yet another loss in my life, my spiritual papa.