Shadow Stories
It has been a particularly hard day. I find I am missing my mom more deeply and yet it feels like the grace for grief is shrinking. I can feel the expectations of others pushing me to move past my sadness and into life again. Maybe those are just the expectations I have put on myself. At any rate, it is not working.
I just want my mom to tell me it’s going to be all right. The pressure is mounting inside and I am crumbling to pieces again. Mom? Is it going to be all right?
I tell my sister this tonight as we are texting. “I am 10 pounds too heavy and grief doesn’t feel attractive on me and I cannot find anything to wear that fits. Who does a girl go to when she doesn’t feel pretty?” Her mama. My sister tells me,” It’s going to be all right.” And I weep.
Is it?
Tonight as I step outside my door, the trees are casting their shadows on the house and I am stirred to melancholy. “Oh” I hear myself whisper. They are telling their shadow stories of another world. I see heaven glimmering on the siding of my house. This world is so temporary. So very temporary. Too fleeting to worry about 10 pounds or grey hair sprouting at my roots. Too short to give worry another moment of my life. Too short not to love myself or my life or all the beauty God has given me. In a little while I will see my mama again.
“It’s going to be all right” I hear Jesus say this time. He is, after all the best comforter of all. All the kind words my mama used to say? He gave them to her to give to me. He is not only the author of love. He is love.
Thank you Jesus for loving me in all of my mess. I am indeed a mess. But you? You specialize in making beauty out of ashes. I have quite a few of those.
Isaiah 61:3 ~”to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”
4 Comments
Give yourself time to grieve. It’s different for all of us. We have a great High Priest who is able to understand and sympathize with your pain of loss. I love your hope in all your sorrow. Abba Father, you came to heal the broken hearted it is in the name of Jesus that I ask you to comfort Maryanne because of your great love for her. May you give her the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that she might be called a tree of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, so that you might be glorified. In Jesus’ name.
Maryanne, I feel your grief and know..I lost my mom in 2002. So hard to believe it’s been so long ago. I can’t tell you that it will get better, but the blow of losing your mom with soften over time. Saying a prayer for you..God binds us together and nothing can break that bind. Your mom will speak to you in everything you do. Every corner and every step you take, your mom will be there. Her love and God’s love will carry you throughout your days..GOD looks after the broken hearted and places people in your path..I have a feeling that He has already placed a large group of family and friends in your life that will support and carry you just when you can’t carry yourself. Sister in Grief,,Patricia <3
As, honey. Let go of those expectations – she’s only been gone a minute! It is fresh, tender. Yes. Yes – it will be all right. It IS all right . . . to ache, to cry, to wonder. Keep that camera.at the ready and shoot right through your tears. What you see is stunning and all beauty is God’s Beauty. Keep letting it help uou . . . and us.
I cannot tell you how much I have appreciated your posts. Next week I will mark 2 years since I lost my mom and I am finding myself grieving afresh as I anticipate this anniversary. I keep remembering a dream I had not long after my mother died in which my dad (who had died ten years prior) was embracing me and comforting me as I was grieving my mom. It was just a dream, but it was such a gift. It was for me an “it’s going to be alright” moment that I still hold onto dearly.
This is totally rambling, and I apologize, but I am also thinking of the song “orphan girl” (https://horsefeathersband.bandcamp.com/track/orphan-girl) and how Christ fills the roles of those we lose until we are reunited with them. “Blessed Savior make me willing / Walk beside me until I’m with them / Be my mother, my father / My sister, my brother.” I so appreciate your insight that “All the kind words my mama used to say? He gave them to her to give to me. He is not only the author of love. He is love.” – that means those kind words will continue to be spoken to us, even if from different sources. I think that this is part of what has moved me so each day as I read your blog – the beauty around us continues. He is faithful and He is still the same even though the world and the faces around me change. It’s good to be reminded of this daily and push back the dark – thank you. xoxo