A Scroll Down Memory Lane

Scrolling my “Memories” on FaceBook, I saw this picture of my beautiful Momma sitting at her place at our dining room table… “1 Year Today”

My caption read:

“Full table-Full heart on this cozy Saturday morning. 🤗❤️🤗 —”

I crumbled in tears.

Caption today could have read:

Empty chair-Broken heart on this awfully hard Sunday afternoon…

I miss her so much. All of us in our family keep doing all the things you do in life. We work, clean, cook, chat, gather with friends, gather for celebrations. But, it all feels so different…it all looks so different without her in this world. I lose it…I cry and cry and cry…

“Lord, please help” is all I can think. I breathe deep trying to settle my emotions. I’ve got stuff to do the rest of this day! I dry my tears and start to get up, but then decide to finish scrolling my FB memories…you know..since it was all going so well, so far….(insert chuckle and eye roll...)

I’m so glad I kept scrolling! A few swipes down I came to these words that I wrote 4 years ago:

October 7th, 2014

What’s in the day ahead?? Something we’ve been hoping for… a thoughtful surprise from a friend… Or….something we never saw coming that rocks our world to the core, changing the whole landscape of how we thought the future would look?? A year ago today that was where we were as a family. World rocked…uncertain of the future… Afraid and yet trying to Trust. 
365 days later, each day having its challenges, it’s pain, it’s small steps toward healing…. Physical and emotional…the landscape is different but each of our days have been covered by God’s Amazing Grace. 
If your world has been rocked, give Him all your days. 
He is steady when everything else is shaky. He is constant when everything else is changing. Thanks be to God.

Yes! and Amen! My “4 years-ago-self” just helped my present day self!

Too often we take that deep breath at the end of a good cry, shake it off and pull ourselves up without ever taking the time to breathe in Hope. Let’s not get up with our puffy eyes and snotty sleeve without reminding ourselves, somehow, that We Can Trust Him!  He is steady and unchanging…He will hold us while all around us is shaky and foreign…He knows us and loves us and will never leave us alone…

Psalm 139

O LORD, You have searched me

and known me.

2You know when I sit and when I rise;

You understand my thoughts from afar.

3You search out my path and my lying down;

You are aware of all my ways.

4Even before a word is on my tongue,

You know all about it, O LORD.

5You hem me in behind and before;

You have laid Your hand upon me.

6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

too lofty for me to attain.

7Where can I go to escape Your Spirit?

Where can I flee from Your presence?

8If I ascend to the heavens, You are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.

9If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle by the farthest sea,

10even there Your hand will guide me;

Your right hand will hold me fast.

11If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me,

and the light become night around me”—

12even the darkness is not dark to You,

but the night shines like the day,

for darkness is as light to You.

13For You formed my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14I will praise You,

for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Marvelous are Your works,

and I know this very well.

15My frame was not hidden from You

when I was made in secret,

when I was woven together

in the depths of the earth.

16Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all my days were written in Your book

and ordained for me

before one of them came to be.

17How precious to me are Your thoughts,a O God,

how vast is their sum!

18If I were to count them,

they would outnumber the grains of sand;

when I awake, I am still with You.