Jeremiah 29 - The rest of it

Losing my mom has changed me in ways I don't always understand.  I spent the first year of holidays just trying to get through them, telling myself that would be the hardest part.  Except that I quickly learned that the second set of holidays were even harder. 

Through visits with a counselor and giving myself permission to grieve I realized that the first year was spent basically duplicating things the way she would have done them.  But then reality showed up and it's a hard reality.

I found myself with a vegetable tray in my hand looking around someone else's kitchen for a logical place to put it.
I found myself shouting at my husband for not sitting down the right way or in the right place - or something like that - because it didn't make sense to me.
I found myself sitting alone in the living room with tears running down my face. 
I found myself with my children crying because I couldn't mentally grasp what my heart was realizing and I took it out on them.
I found myself trying to organize four bins of Black Friday DVD's at Walmart because something needed to make sense.
I found myself completely lost because the store moved the frozen biscuits.

Everything was out of order. 

I had been searching for months.  Trying, just trying, to grasp what was missing.

It was always just beyond my reach. 

I had blamed my weight.
I had blamed friends who had moved.
I had blamed homeschooling.
I had blamed money.
I had blamed my husband.
I had blamed anxiety.
I had blamed hormones.
I had blamed my kids noise.

Because grieving?  Nope, this girl had done that.  Check the boxes, yo.

Except that I hadn't even begun to process what it meant to lose my mom.

And then in December Cindy Bultema spoke at our church and she shared her story and encouraged us chase after Jesus instead of numbing out the hard stuff.  And I thought that numbing out was the way to go - but this lady who really got me kept saying not to. 

And then Jesus showed up and used her to share a passage from Jeremiah 29 and I sort of reluctantly opened my ears.  And then, as He always does, God showed up to speak in a big way.

I took those verses home and I remembered later that week that I wanted to spend some time reflecting on them and low and behold, it wasn't long before I was adding them to my bullet-ish calendar/list/journal for that week because they were that good. 

As soon as I'm ready and not a day before I will show up and take care of you as I promised!  I know what I'm doing.  I have it all planned.  When you call on me, when you come and pray to me - I WILL LISTEN. When you come looking for me, you WILL find me.  Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else I'll make sure that you won't be disappointed.

(Jeremiah 29:10b-14a, Laura's Version)

I share them today because the Lord did show up.  He walked me through every minute of the Christmas season.  He carried me through the hurt, sadness, memories, stress and mandatory smiles. 

I allowed myself to rewrite a few traditions.  I bough cookies, skipped the outdoor nativity and used disposable dishes for (literally) almost everything. 

I focused on meeting with my counselor and finding quiet times to spend with Jesus. 

And I got through it holding His hand. 

I share all of this today as a beginning to my story for 2019.  Stay tuned.