Alone

This is going to be a hard post. I am struggling this week with the thought that I will always be alone. I fear this thought and it makes me feel paralyzed. What if God gave me my one and only shot at marriage? What if the two kids that I have are the only ones that I will have? What if God has chosen single motherhood for me for all of my childrens lives? I don't know how to face these questions with anything but defeat. I know that I have been given a blessing in having had a great husband and marriage. I know that my kids are also a blessing and are a source of great joy. These things do not negate the fact that I am now alone and have not guaranteed that it will ever be any different. I don't know how to walk this fear out. I fight it. I want to be married. I liked being married. I want kids. I want to share life with someone and I don't know what to do with these desires. Do I want to replace Eric? No. Would I be able to love someone as deeply? Yes. I wouldn't be looking for a carbon copy of Eric. I would be open to who God has for me. Anyway, this is off topic of my overwhelming feeling that this is all life has for me-being alone with kids. This is a hard place to be and my brain wants to beat this topic until it finds a solution only no solution presents itself. I need to wait upon the Lord for strength, courage and His leading. My heart is having a hard time following what my brain knows. I know that I need to grieve but I would rather love. I know that love could come after grief but my heart doesn't feel that right now and the heart often trumps the mind-at least for women it does. I don't want to be honest with this blog but I just had to. I need to write it out so that I can see what I think. I need to write it so that someone can pray for me. I need to write this so that God can start to help me and change my heart.

Dear Eric

Dear Eric-
I love you and I always will. I want you to know that I will love other people and someday I may love and marry a man but I promise to find a godly man and a man that loves our kids. You taught me how to live. I was so bound up in fear, sin and religiousness. I was afraid of the responsiblities of being a grown-up. You were patient with me while I fought for healthiness. You were loving as you helped me get through my fears. You reassured me that I could be grown without falling on my face. You smiled in the face of adversity and said, "it is going to be alright Sar." You were my rock for many years. You showed me the way through religiousity to real relationship with God. I was so confused about how to love God without working so very hard and you showed me how God pursued me and loved me. I knew that I didn't have to do things right to get God's attention-he already graciously gave me all that I needed to be with him-all I had to do was ask. Your example of living in grace changed my life. You changed my life. I felt like I wasn't alive and you helped me wake up. I am sorry that I was selfish. I am sorry that I didn't work on issues earlier. I am sorry that I couldn't support you more this last year. If I could have taken the pain away I would have. If I could have talked to you after the accident I would have. If I could have been a better wife I would have. I promise not to live in the past. I promise not to be broken forever. I will always miss you but I promise not to get stuck. I promise to teach the kids about God the best that I can. I wish you were here but I know that you can't so I have to continue to say goodbye-see you again in heaven.

Grief to Sarah

Dear Sarah-
I am sorry that this time is hard for you. I know that I am not always welcome but I need to be here. Believe it or not I am keeping you safe. I am helping let go of the pain that Eric's death has brought you. I am helping you see that God is always going to be there and supply all of your needs. I am here to keep you company so that you know that you loved deeply. I am here so that you never forget the gifts that you have in your children, family and friends. I am here even though you want me to go so that you can walk away from this time with your head held up high and your relationship with God deeper still. I am giving you a second chance to appreciate the blessings that you have and let go of the mistakes that you made in the past. No one is perfect and most people don't get a second chance. You are getting a big blessing-embrace it. I hope that someday you can look back on our time together with appreciation but I understand that this won't happen for a while. I will leave after a while...you know that right? I hope that this letter helps you but I understand if it doesn't for some time.
Sincerely-
Grief

Dear Grief

Dear Grief-
I am writing to tell you how I feel about you. Right now I hate you. Somedays I tolerate you. Other days I love you. You are my constant companion and yet I did not invite you home. You are there when I wake, there during the day and there as I drift off to sleep. You remind me of what I don't have, all that I am missing out on, all that I could have had and all that was. There are times that I want to kick you out but you are a terrible listener-you always stay even if in the shadows. I don't want to cry. I don't want to feel pain. I don't want to feel regrets. I don't want to feel anger for what I sometimes feel was stolen from me but you make me feel all of these things anyway. Why does this have to be so hard? Why can't you let up a little. When are you going to leave? Can we agree to part ways sometime soon? I want life to be normal. I want to feel like I am just me and not half of a puzzle. Somedays you let me feel that-today you are hurting me with the feeling that I am missing part of myself. Why do I want things that I can't have? Why? I want to be free of you. I want to be married. I want my kids to be happy. I want to have more kids. Why can't you go away and bring a happy new phase? Is there someone else there with you that could keep me company?

Do I have anything good to say about you? Today that is hard for me but I will try. You help me to see life clearly. It is so short and you remind me to hold on to each day as something precious. You help me press on to healing. You help me see how helpless I am without God and how I couldn't do this without His help. You help tire me out so that I can sleep. You help me cry. You help me keep Eric's memory alive. How I love Eric, my kids, my family and friends-you help me hold on to those things because they are important.

When it is time for you to leave I may feel a twing of sadness but mostly I will feel relief. You are to be my companion only for a season and today I wish that season was done. I can't wait for the day when we say goodbye but until them, I will try to accept you as my constant companion.

Sarah

Short Post

I wanted to let everyone know that I am indeed alive. I had a great weekend. I was sans parents this weekend and I actually did well. I didn't feel the overwhelming grip of loneliness. I felt like I could do the whole single mom thing. We had activities to do and I called people to hang out with. Overall it was a good thing. I felt like that was an important step to have made. I am okay being alone at least once and a while. Since Eric died I felt like such a loser if I was alone and I also tended to feel depressed because my brain had too much time to feel sorry for myself. It isn't a healthy sadness-if it were I would be okay with it. Having a pity party never gets you anywhere-it helps you stay stuck.

My singles group has been such a blessing. I love the people. They are so accepting and I love that they love the Lord. Please pray for us as we meet in the town center and pray for God's will. We will be there the next five weeks and we know that if we seek God we will find him when we seek him with all our hearts (Jer. 29:13).

I had an amazing time with the Lord this morning. My mind has been struggling with some things and I am frustrated that they seek to take up my thoughts. God gave me a break from those things and allowed my to worship him and study him. It was so needed and so refreshing. God is good. His love endures forever. (2 Chron. 7:3b and hundreds of other times in scriptures)
God bless-I will write again soon.

JJ Heller - All I Need

New Day and all I need is Him

The title of this post is where my hearts cry is today. I had a hard week last week. I miss Eric so much and memories of him are all around me-flooding my mind and heart. I feel overwhelmed by the task of raising two young children but I am praying for a double portion of wisdom, patience, strength and anything else that a parent needs. One of my pastors lost his wife in a car accident while his kids were young and he has been a great help. He reminded me that I could be praying for the things that I need, after all God allowed this to happen and He knows that I will need more help in this area. The amazing thing about God is that he provides for us in ALL ways. Philippians 4:19 states, "And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Psalm 72:12-13 says, "For he will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death." Not only did Jesus save us from eternal death but he is ready, willing and able to supply for all our needs for his glory. I feel great need lately which is a shame because I now see how very needy I have always been and how very self-sufficient I try to be. How do we offer all of our lives to Christ? How do we go deeper still? How do we know in our hearts how much we need him? I think that we start by accepting his gift of forgiveness and eternal life. The first step is realizing that you can't get to heaven on your own 'good' life but you NEED Jesus' perfect life and offering. The next step is to never take that forgiveness for granted. We can do this by staying in communion with God. If our hearts remain tender to God we will hear and obey Him. I tend to get 'busy'. I walk around like I don't have time for God. What we are really saying is screw you God, I got this. A guy in my singles group said the other day that we have to fight for out time with God and I agree. Once I took the mindset of a soldier this makes sense. I have to fight against my flesh, my pride and my self-suffiency. I have to fight to bring these things to God and submit them to his will. It is a choice to do this but thankfully God is so gracious, when you bring them to him he lightens your load and helps lead you. That is what he means by his "yoke being easy and his burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). I so need God. I need all that he offers. I need him and him alone. When I feel despair and saddness I am brought back to the place of reminder that all I need is Christ. I will miss Eric. I will mourn the loss of my husband, my BEST friend, my children's father, my future life with him but not at the expense of forgetting who my life belongs to and who provides for all I truly need. I do not mourn for what happened to Eric. He is with his Father in heaven and he loved Jesus with all his heart. Eric is home and someday I will be too. I hope that you are there as well. God bless.

Realization

I had one of those moments tonight-one of those 'oh man!' moments. I am upset about something that someone said. It wasn't a bad comment, it just resonated as an ugly truth. It was a comment to the effect that I just wanted to get through this grief to the other side. This is so true. I don't want to admit it but sometimes I want to just get over this bad part. I just want to run through the pain and if I miss some of it then...oh well. I think that walking through the pain is necessary. I don't want to get over Eric, I want to get over the pain and saddness of him being gone. I want to hold on to all of the good things that we had. The good memories and the blessings that we had. I don't want to forget him but I feel that tendency because right now the thought of Eric brings pain. I love him so much and I don't like to think about it because it makes me feel lost. I am afraid that the pain will take me away and I won't be able to handle my kids. I am afraid. I don't know that the realization is God's way of taking me deeper. It is a way to walk this journey and yet I am still afraid. I will obey. I will walk. I will cry. See you on the other side.

Prayer

Very shortly after Eric died I felt God calling me to a time of purity. I see it was now for my protection. I have been convicted of very tiny things and have been called to obey frequently. I find it hard to listen to anything but Christian music right now and so I don't. I have often had to change the TV channel or have no time to watch anyway. There has been a lot of clinging to God and those things help me to cling to God and not be distracted. I hope that this doesn't sound high and mighty because it isn't meant that way rather this is meant to be put out there as a baffled question...has this ever happened to you? The latest thing that God is calling me to is prayer. Prayer has really impacted me since Eric died. I could FEEL peoples prayers lifting me up and carrying me. Gods prescience was so heavy in that and it so profoundly moved me and still moves me. God is so real and so ready and able to care for me and for you. Prayer has been important to me for a long time but never to this degree. I don't know what is going on but I feel compelled to pray-pray-PRAY. God wants to change me and use me for His glory just as He desires to do that with you too. I am praying.

One of my singles group leaders was sharing what God has been in him and it had to do with prayer. He said that the Lord was calling him to pray for seven weeks in the town square. My spirit actually leaped within me when he said those words. It was so powerful that it brought tears to my eyes...again spirit leaping is new for me. I am not sure what God is doing in me but I am praying. Know that there are people out there who love Jesus and are praying for his will to be done and his glory to be shone. I pray that your walk will get closer to God as you read this. After all what are we without God? What can we take with us when we die? What are we living for? God has so challenged me that all I can do is pray as He purifies me for his will and for his glory.

Submission

I had to submit myself to God today. I hadn't realized that I was holding onto the idea of marriage so hard. I found some marriage books the other day and I couldn't bear to give them to a young engaged couple. I wanted to keep them, but for what purpose? I am not married and I am not getting married any time soon. There I sat last night feeling every emotion under the sun and trying to rationalize why it was okay to hang onto these books. This morning I woke up and I knew that God was saying that it was time to let go. It is hard to let go of things. It is hard to admit that you are not in control and that that is a GOOD thing. I have no ability to wish marriage into existence only God can bring a husband. I had to wrestle with the idea that I am single and could be for the rest of my life. I had to submit my will to Gods and that was painful...it is painful. I don't want to let go of my desires and put them in God's hands but that is exactly where they belong. I am single. I am okay. I am well taken care of by my Father in Heaven. Pray that I can continue to submit my will to God's and that I will have the courage to walk it out in obedience.

Keep you Safe

This is the song that I was sobbing to when in the car on sunday. It was as if God was sitting there in the car telling me that He was going to keep me safe. He is the best Daddy. Enjoy JJ Heller's song from her Painted Red CD.

Garage Sale Days

I am getting a garage sale together. I went to my dad's factory and emptied out all the things I had in storage there. I thought that it would be way worse than it was. A lot of the stuff wasn't our personal stuff it was kitchen plates and garbage cans. I didn't realize that most of the things that we really loved was at the house and I had already sorted through all of that stuff. The items that have the most hold on me in storage are the baby clothes. I don't want to give them up. I don't want to admit that I could be done having kids. I know that I am young but there is no guarantee that I will ever be married again and that is sooo hard to reconcile. I wasn't ready to be single. I wasn't done being married to Eric. I feel like I was really getting the hang of being married. I struggled a lot in the first years that I was married. I felt young, unprepared and scared. I didn't know what I wanted from life but I felt boxed in being married even though I loved Eric a lot. I finally got well enough to stop being the one who was supported all of the time and was able to support Eric while he was in Polk City. I felt a complete role reversal when Eric got "let go" from his position there. I was no longer the supported I was the supporter. The past year that we were together I held Eric up with encouragement and prayer. I could feel him slip away into discouragement and questions. He loved Jesus so much and wanted to serve Him with all that he had and yet God had him in a time of waiting. I don't know why God did what He did but I do know that God IS good and that He has a plan. I know that Eric is completely content. Eric has no more saddness or pain...he is home. I also know that God helped me transistion into the role that I am currently in by putting Eric in a time of waiting.

I broke down sobbing last night. I was so mad at myself. I find myself wanting things that I have no business wanting. I want a dad for my kids and a husband to share life with but only God can bring those things in the time that He would choose. I make myself mad by wanting what isn't mine. I get so impatient for life to go the way I want it to go instead of stopping and enjoying the good gifts that my Father has for me today. I have healthy and happy kids. They are more spiritually aware then I have ever seen them and that is a work that only God can do. If I could have Eric back today I would take him but that can't be. Why am I so eager to get on with life? I want to brush saddness under the carpet sometimes but I can't. Grief is good. It is healing and while I want to run from it I also want to embrace it. Does that make sense to anyone else but me? I know that ladies understand!

Back to the bit on sobbing. I don't feel like crying all that often but I do have crying jags. I lost it last night. I was listening to music in my car and the words the singer was singing we my heart at that moment. It was totally a God thing because I hadn't really listened to that CD until last night and it was as if I had written the music. I literally cried out to God. When I was done I went inside the restaurant where friends were and had a good time (after excusing my apperance which they were very understanding about). I am trying to do this single thing and I am finding the fun in it. I didn't have a good time while single before. That was some of the worst times in my life. I feel that God has graciously redeemed that part of my life by giving me this time. I know that I am 30 but I feel like a kid sometimes and I love it. God is so gracious.

I hope that this blog finds you well but if it doesn't know that I am praying for those unspoken prayers. Something that has come out of all of this is a deeper prayer life for me. I feel burdened for people and have turned them over to God regularly. God has pressed upon my heart these words: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7