When we came home from Mobile after Christmas it was Dec 29th. We were going to be in Webb Alabama for Bill Johnson on Jan 3rd. Julia was scheduled to go to Mobile on the 10th to be there with Lisa for the birth of the baby. So we didn’t have much time to take Christmas decorations down. Like always I was at work on the 30th and 31st so that left the brunt of the work for her. I would just take boxes down to the basement to store after they were packed. She was the brains and I was the brawn, although not much of that. Anyway Julia was always decorating from holiday to holiday, so when I cam home from work on the New Years Eve, the house was decorated for Valentines Day. It’s been Valentines Day here ever since. I really didn’t know what went where. I had some idea, but the details still escape me. If she were here, the house would be decorated with colored eggs and bunnies for Easter, but that’s just in three weeks, and I really didn’t want to do that. So Biddie and John came over this afternoon to help me sort out all the valentine decorations and try to get the house back to normal. We changed out the heart shaped plates and the red bed covers and put the regular ones back up. I still think we are missing some, but I haven’t found them. I did find a credit card yesterday that I hadn’t seen. So I am slowly beginning to make the house mine. No that isn’t right, because everywhere I look I see her touch. I guess that I am slowly beginning to move into areas that were totally her domain. I don’t really want to, but sometimes it is necessary. I just had an overwhelming wave of sadness flow over me like a wave. The realization that she will never again decorate this house just hit me. I might decorate, or have friends decorate, but the decorations that we took down today were the last she ever put up. It’s hard to realize, and the loss is so real. This is one of those times that I could just spiral out of control if I let myself go there. I do grieve my loss of her. I miss her smile, her love and joy. I even miss her scolding when I would do something she deemed inappropriate, which was often : > ) But I have to continue to choose, just like I did just now, to press into the comfort of His Love. What I am trying to learn is to let His love and comfort take me where I need to go. It’s not like it is replacing Julia’s love and comfort. No it’s different, deeper somehow. The thing is I know that once I get to where I am trying to go, it will in many ways be better than anything I had before. I hope that I am making sense. We need to get this. It’s important for all of us to understand the fullness and depth of the Father’s overwhelming love. I always thought I did. Now I know that there is so much more, and we have to constantly explore the mysteries of His love if we are to ever really understand and comprehend it.
Wow, I think I got in waters over my head! Anyway, the house is in order, and work is coming early tomorrow. God is Good and He is in a Good Mood!
It was 7 weeks after Chuck died that we went to his work to clear out his stuff. They had left it exactly as he had the last day that he worked, which was the day before he died. The water bottle was still sitting there, half full. As we cleaned out his stuff -his tools, his toaster, his Bible- it became so real. He's not coming back. We cried a lot of tears. But then the kids got to go to the hangers and sit in the engine of a 767 and the cockpit of a MD-88 and they were all smiles. It's amazing how our kids/his grandkids make life move on quickly for us. It also reminds us that this life on earth is so short compared to the eternity that we will share with Jesus. Blessings!
ReplyDelete