Peace in the Storm

Since I lost Jenna, I find myself re-evaluating everything in my life. Everything. Nothing is as it was. It's a bit overwhelming. When everything in this world keeps rotating and it feels like it should STOP, it just keeps going.


I feel out of place in the sunshine. Under a stormy sky, I feel right at home because that's how I feel inside. It sounds strange, but I just don't know if I will ever get to appreciate a beautiful sunny day for what it once was. I keep asking myself, How can it be so sunny and beautiful outside when my heart is so grief-stricken? When we live in a world where babies die and children get illnesses? How can the sun keep shining when there are countless broken mama's hearts all over the world? How can the skies be so blue as if nothing happened and my Jenna is not here like she should be? I keep asking these questions, as if the world revolves around me... News flash - it doesn't.


I get to thinking about what Jesus did on the cross and it melts my heart. I don't think I have ever appreciated it more than I do now. I write that to my shame, but her death just made my salvation and Heaven more real. He made it possible to see her again. He made a way. And that gives me hope, more than I can ever write about.


It's an amazing truth that I can survive this grief. I don't feel like it most days, but it is just mind-blowing that women have survived this lifeless and empty grief. That also gives me hope. I read about the mothers who have passed their first year or more without their little ones and that gives me a huge glimpse of hope. I can't see myself being in a better place right now, but it must be possible.


Lauren from "Walking by Faith" so perfectly worded it: "He’s showing me how to live life when it hurts to breathe some days."


It does hurt to breathe some days. It hurts to exist. I told someone the other day that I don't know how long I am going to be where I am in this grief, but this is just where I am. Desperately missing her. Devastated. Feeling deserted by God.


I know better than to feel those things, but I do. I know whom I have believed (II Tim. 1:12), and He is faithful but I can't help but feel that I have been let down by the One who could have saved her.


Lately where we live, it has been raining and stormy. It has perfectly captioned my heart's deepest sorrow. I stand here but I am really not alone. Even when my frail mind is doubting His cause, His love and His plan, He is right there, assuring me that it will be alright filling my heart with the the mystery of peace.