Happy Mother's Day!

I am the mother of six children - three that dance with Jesus in heaven and three that are with us on this earth. My prayer is that we will also all walk with Jesus while we are still on this earth with the help of the Holy Spirit.

(I got the following poem from a friend whose mother passed away recently.)

You can shed tears that she is gone

or you can smile because she lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she's gone

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty, and turn your back

or you can do what she'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love, and go on.

- David Harkins

This is the struggle that I am finding myself in. The last few days, especially as mother's day was coming up and as I was trying to clean up all the stuff we brought home from NYC, I was feeling very overwhelmed with regrets, sorrow, grieving, etc. The desire is there some days, because the pain is so relentless and emormous - to close my mind to that and try to forget everything, but I don't really want to do that.

Last night as I was struggling with this, I picked up the "Daily Grace for Women" book I got from my "bowling sisters" - opened it at random and read a devotional based on 2 Cor. 4 : 17 & 18 - good reminder - to keep focused on things eternal and not on the things of this earth. The caption on the bottom of the page goes like this, "God has not abandoned you to face your struggles alone. He will give you the strength that you need to overcome any hardship."

This morning as I was getting ready for church two hymns came to my mind which ministered to my wounded heart. "Standing on the Promises" - which also came to me at a very critical moment in my journey last winter. The other one was, "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand." I want to keep standing and not give in to the temptation to give up hope and fall into despair and depression.

I don't actually think there is any thing wrong with letting the tears come. It can actually be very therapeutic. It takes a lot of energy - this grieving - whether it is letting the tears come or trying to hold them in. I think it is impossible to always be as positive as the poem suggests, although that might be the goal. God gave us emotions for a reason. To suppress them all the time is not healthy either. There has to be a healthy balance.

When Job was grieving all his losses, he tore his robe in grief, fell to the ground and in all of that he did not sin by blaming God. That is the wisdom we need in suffering - not to blame God.

The songs we sang at the worship service today, also really ministered to me - thanks to the worship team. The first one was "Mighty to Save" - which had become very meaningful to me over the winter. It was sung at the church we attended in NYC and then I found it on Integrity Music's website and played it a lot whenever I needed a boost - along with "Hungry (Falling on my Knees).

We also sang a new song today - new to me - that I really liked - about how amazing God is. It brought the tears to my eyes.

For those of you reading this, you can say a little prayer for our family - that all of us in our grieving process will realize that God has not abanoned us - that He is with for us and will never leave us or forsake us, as the promise goes. Thank you.

It is very nice today, for a change, so we want to go walking in the park and later go out for dinner with the three wonderful children that are still with us.