Beauty from Ashes

This week has been brutal.  For starters, I picked up Jon's ashes from the funeral home.  It was much harder than I anticipated.  I walked in alone and walked out with a blue velvet encased box containing the love of my life.  How is it that just a little more than three weeks ago I laid my head on his chest, he held me tight, kissed me on my forehead and made me feel safe.  Now, I lay on my bed alone, clutching a box of ashes to my chest, sobbing with all that is within me and begging God for mercy.

As though that was not enough, the following days included chores and unpleasant phone calls.  All tasks seem meaningless, but each conversation including,  "Please accept our condolences....and we'll need a copy of the death certificate," is another knife to the gut.  It is very difficult to walk through the day drenched in sadness and still have the energy for anything else.

Sunday was Jon's birthday, a "first" that came way too soon.

Sometimes I am numb, but mostly I feel the pain.  It is a relentless, tireless monster, chasing after me.  Sometimes I manage to run, staying just ahead of it.  I can do it...for a while, but it ALWAYS catches up overtakes me.  After all of the crying, when my eyes are burning hot, my stomach aches and my chest is literally sore from heaving sobs, there is an EVEN DEEPER cry that comes from this unknown pit in my soul.  It is a cry I have never heard before, an agony that comes from a place so deep within me that all of the tears I can muster can't flush it out of my body. It is trapped there, trying to escape.  It is a physically taxing effort, trying to excise this grief.  I am being battered from the inside out, wrecking balls to my gut, sledgehammers to my heart and dynamite to my very soul.  I am straining for relief.....but there it remains...the most intense, most painful anguish.  And I fear the days are not getting better, they're just getting longer.  All of life seems so long right now, so very long.  

"Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning."  

This is going to be a very. long. night.  If the joy that is coming in the "morning," is half as intense as the sorrow and weeping, then it will truly be something worth waiting for.  At the moment, it does not seem that anything short of Heaven could counterbalance this grief.

I need to write.  Why?  Why do I need to write about this experience?  Maybe I am trying to understand it myself, or longing to bring some meaning to this horrific landscape that has become my journey.  Writing has come to mean more to me these past 3 weeks because Jon wrote often and it usually helped him.  Writing makes me feel closer to him.  Is it just another futile effort to rid myself of this great sadness?  Maybe it is all of those things, but MOSTLY it's because I AM DETERMINED TO SEE WHAT GOD IS DOING HERE.  I know my God: His promises are true and HE IS ALWAYS FAITHFUL.  I do not FEEL it right now, but I know He is doing something, that He will not leave me with my face in the dust forever.  He will heal my broken heart and restore my crushed spirit.  And I DON'T WANT TO MISS IT.  I want to look back, with a crowd of witnesses by my side, and SEE how the Lord did it....all of it...for all of us.  How can He possibly turn this mourning into dancing or bring beauty from these ashes?  I don't know.  Right now it seems impossible, but I BELIEVE that HE WILL.  And that belief, that faith will get me through the next 10 minutes, then the next 10, and the next.  

We tend to forget, don't we?  When things are going well we don't often look back on the fires of sorrow and remember how God brought us through.  We tend to take His goodness for granted.   So, if my writing makes you uncomfortable, just know it is not in an effort to overshare, or garner pity.  It is because I have no need for anything right now but pure honesty, gut-wrenching truth.  All of the cliches and poetic sayings mean nothing now. Even scriptures quoted at the wrong moment seem trite and insincere.  I need to recall these days exactly as they are so we can see God's glory for how amazing it is!  His promises are being put to the test in our lives right now.  I told McCartney that we can trust him completely.  He will be her father.  He will be my husband.  He will be our best friend.  He will be our provider.  He will be our guide.  He will be all of those things because HE promised that He would.

Grief is a journey - and this is where I am.  I am new to this journey, but I can tell you something I know already: grief alone will not even begin to touch the profound loss in my life.  All the Kubler Ross "stages of grief," all the screaming sobs, enough tears to fill an ocean - they all seem inadequate for this experience.  All words are useless - all words except one..."Jesus." And sometimes that is literally the only prayer I can pray. When the pain is overwhelming and the road ahead looks dark, scary and lonely....and long, so very long, I will not dare take one step forward without Him carrying me.   

One last thing - writing about these sunless days, this abysmal sadness and the shining glimmer of hope in the distance is in no way an effort to preach or teach or impart wisdom.  I have none.  This blog is for me.  If someone else relates to it or gets something out of it, then Praise God!  But I want something out of it.  I am desperate for something out of this tragedy....God, more of Him, all of Him, ONLY Him.