Overwhelmed in the Thought.

The night before the day that we’re all to celebrate the muthas…..I didn’t get much rest. I think my eyes didn’t close until around 3:00a.m. For some reason, one thought entered my mind, and it is still screaming at me. Don’t know why it’s taken three and a half years…..but it has. There I was, winding down for the night with my husband. Attempting to keep my mind off of the elephant in the room, and enjoy my husband’s birthday weekend as well…..
And it hit me like 87 thousand bricks…

She’s not coming back, my Momma.

She’s not going to be here when I turn 35, 40, 45, etc. She’s not going to see the rest of the children we have, they’ll never hear her contagious laugh. She won’t be here again, on this side of eternity, anyway. For the rest of my days here, her absence is permanent. Now I already knew that. It’s been hard enough trudging through the past few years without her, never having her to call and ask important Mommy questions….never celebrating birthdays and holidays with her, never having her to call when something amazing happens….I already knew. But for some reason that night, it really started to resonate….it’s permanent. And no matter what I try to say to make myself “deal” with it….it doesn’t take away the fact that it hurts like hell, it’s not fair, and it’s permanent.

Usually when some big tragedy or revelation happen, I (which I’m sure many people do as well) have so many ways to cope. I think we are kinda sorta made that way. We can talk ourselves through what we need to say, feel, or do. We can try to look at the bright side. We can keep ourselves busy. We can focus on something completely different. And some of us even ignore what needs to be dealt with. These mechanisms may work fine sometimes in life, they may help for a season. For me, I write. I don’t take grief lightly, and I have made it a point to try to help others as much as I know how in their sorrow. And sometimes it helps, to just get it all out. To just cry. To tell my husband I just need a hug. To eat some chocolate.

And then there are nights like that night. Where no words will help. No hug will heal. No amount of tears will relieve the pain. No amount of writing will soften the blow. On these nights, when the world seems silent….when God, Himself seems to be somewhere off in the distance…I believe with my whole heart I’m not “supposed” to cope. I’m not supposed to find some bright spot. I’m not supposed to make myself busy with life. I’m not supposed to pretend to be happy about something so dark.

And sweet you, neither are you.
Some moments in life, we’re supposed to be broken, needy children who have no answers. Sometimes we’re supposed to be souls carrying cracked hearts, drowning in our tears from the pain of missing our loved ones. Sometimes we’re supposed to be needy people who have nothing to offer but broken hearts full of questions that angrily, or even bitterly cry out, “WHY?!?!”…..

Because if we’re all-knowing people, full of answers, full of smiles, full of rainbows, sunshine, kittens, puppies, unicorns………if we’re a people who don’t need the love and comfort of a Saviour, who never need one another for love and support…..that is what we will pass on to those looking to us for answers; that simply ignoring one another’s pain, including our own, is the answer…and how sad to pass that on to another human being. If we don’t need one another, what’s the point??

…..and what was the point of a Man on a cross?

If we are people full of certainy and hands overflowing from an abundance of answers about life…then we can never come to Him like a child (which He mentions in that thing called His Word…) who often has nothing to offer but questions about the world, eyes full of tears from life’s hurts, and the faith of simply coming to Him, without a single thing to offer.
I’ve noticed that about our son.

He wants us most when he’s sick. He needs us most when he’s hurting. He needs us most when he’s angry, even at us! He cries for us when he’s upset and doesn’t understand why bad things have to happen. He simply comes to us with all of his hurt, sadness, wounds, and sickness…..but he still comes knowing we are here for him, he knows we are here.
Sometimes, that is the only way I can come to Him. As a child with nothing but questions, hurt, sadness, despair, doubt, worry, tears…..even anger at HIM. But I still go…because it’s all I know to do—as my husband has said before, “We still go even then, because we know He is our only hope.” He is indeed, especially when looking at something as dark, sad, and lonely as death.

He knows I have some serious beef with him about the past few years. He knows my feelings, my hurt, my anger. He knows the injustices done. He knows the reason I cry like I did that Saturday night. And He is still my Father, our Father…..who is carrying around our hurt with us. He loves us that much…..to not cast us away when all we know to do is hurt. His love is that B I G that it doesn’t run away when we question why He causes us to grieve. Heaven forbid we ever make another soul feel stupid for hurting. Heaven forbid we abandon our friends in their deep sorrows. Heaven forbid we ever silence a crying, grieving heart, whether it’s a two-year-old who scraped his knee, or a thirty-year-old who needs her Momma. Heaven forbid we ever get to a point where we think He only offers smiles and giggles, and not sadness and tears. If so, we may have totally missed what happened those dark hours when there was nothing BUT sadness, grief, blood, and tears.