'I am better off healed...than I ever was unbroken' ~ Beth Moore

It's been over two months. The hardest of my life. I've noticed the raw gut wrenching grief that I experienced initially has dulled, it must be the bodies defense mechanism to allow you to walk among the living. Sully calls it auto-pilot, I just call it surviving.

I want to be in that selfless space where I am grateful that her suffering is over, that she is fully restored and in the arms of Jesus. It is what I strive for everyday, moving past my own heartache and celebrating her victory. Charlee's new favorite song is 'Lifer' by MercyMe, it is kind of beautiful how it encapsulates the whole purpose of our walk, something my mom lived out. "And as long as my heart is beatin', And my lungs are breathin'...I'll keep on singin' for you! Even right through the moment, You call me home, yeah, I'll still be singin' for you...'Cause that's what lifers do" I watch Charlee belt out those lyrics and I know, everything is going to be okay. I see my mom's legacy live on everyday in my children. God has given me abundant grace in my journey to find peace in this, and he has been faithful in always rescuing me when I am drowning in despair. It's a process, just like everything in life, and in true Joy fashion I am going at a snails pace. Thankfully I have a patient Heavenly Father.

 

If I thought it was hard to lose weight and achieve goals before, grief has created a whole new syphon on motivation and success. It is a painful reminder that I should have tackled these 'issues' in my life when things were more in my favor. But I will admit that in this valley, worse than death, I have grown beyond measure. It is something amazing when you find yourself in this place of sorrow that no earthly remedy can cure, when you are stripped bare of everything that once distracted you, you can feel the presence of God. I feel like I shut out the world so I could heal, and God crawled into the depths with me. I wanted to stay there forever honestly, I don't want to live in a world where she doesn't exist. I have resisted God a lot in coming back out into the open, I wanted to cling to my pain, because as long as I don't heal I don't have to acknowledge this is the rest of my earthly life...a life without her. I still have days of retreat...but daily God meets me where I am at and gives me the grace to live again. I don't look at my lack of progress as a failure, outwardly the scale didn't budge and my house is still unorganized and unkempt, my family is still struggling to co-exist amidst the sadness, but I am learning to relax and find the joy in the simple things. I have lived my life overwhelmed, discouraged, and exhausted and that my dear friends was unproductive. I know it sounds cliché, at least it did to me before all of this, when people said 'Let Go & Let God' but in truly understanding that I feel like the chains that once held me captive have been broken. It was in the despair that I lost my will to hold so tightly to everything, I had no other choice but to give it all to God...because I had nothing left in me. And it was there I found freedom.

 

 

My relationship with my kids has been one of the hardest to survive through this, second only to my relationship with Sully. My mom was my mentor in raising these amazing little humans, and I relied on her more than I even understood. It is hard to watch them mourn her, and they both are doing it so differently. Aiden has changed so much in the past year, sometimes I feel like I am growing up with them, learning as I go in this whole parenting thing. I have always been passive in personality, and it made life as a part time single mom (oilfield wife life) extremely unfun. I can't stress it enough to parents who are just starting this journey out, how important it is to establish clear boundaries with your kids and to be CONSISTENT! Trust me when I say it's so much easier when they are little, trying to do this right at the ages of 10 & 7 has been no cake walk. Charlee is a people pleaser by nature so she has fallen into line pretty seamlessly. Aiden, well Aiden has been a different experience...he has channeled the spirit of Braveheart, he has put on his war paint, mounted his horse and cries out for his FREEDOM! Even though it has been a trying couple of months, and the grumbling has been a recurring thing, I can see the changes....and like his mother he is going at a snails pace, so I am leaning on my Heavenly Father for patience as he finds his way. There is no handbook on how to mend your broken heart, not for us, and not for them. For those of you who extended grace and understanding to him throughout this I can't thank you enough.

 

 

When someone you love dies, you lose part of yourself. You change. In marriage you feel that more than you expect. In my mind, I had imagined things playing out so differently than they did when we lost her. Honestly you can't have expectations when it comes to death, even if you are totally aware of what is happening it still hits you in the gut like a sucker punch from outta nowhere. I can still remember praying with my family for her to be released from the agony that she was enduring and yet when she took her final breath all I could feel was disbelief. So having expectations of how life was going to be afterwards was just as unrealistic as thinking we were prepared for it to happen at all. Nonetheless, I managed to find myself disappointed in Sully for not reacting in the way I felt like he should. Granted I never shared these expectations with him, so the poor guy was set up for failure from the get go. The past year has taken a huge toll on our relationship, thankfully I married a man who loves God, and who values marriage and honors commitments. We have been through so much together, and certainly survived what could have easily broken us apart, and I know the other side of this is going to be a beautiful place of rest, and restoration. Our marriage is like a diamond, the process of getting an ugly rock and turning it into a beautiful gemstone is a long one, but the end result is worth the labor. To all of you who have encouraged us, supported us, and gave us Godly advice and wisdom throughout this I can't thank you enough.

One of the most pivotal things I have learned about myself is that I have fooled myself into believing that my 'meekness' was a gift. Where most have managed to establish healthy boundaries in relationships in their life, I have essentially lived without any. I have allowed anyone and everyone an opinion on my life, and allowed those to trump my own. The problem of a life without boundaries is that you receive unsolicited advice, constructive criticism, and outright judgement on a consistent basis. You put out that you are incapable of making decisions for yourself. I always thought transparency was my ministry, and I don't doubt that God lays it on my heart to share honestly my heart, through this blog...but that is also essential to someone like me, to establish boundaries. My mom was my shield in so many ways, because she knew I was such a doormat, she recognized abusive relationships and I didn't even know how much protection she offered me until she was gone. When the world would step on my toes, she was always there to reaffirm that I was a good mom, a good wife, and a good person. I am 35 years into this passive personality, I've allowed people to have a say in my life all 35 of them. It will be quite the challenge changing this nasty habit.

Life is hard. God is good.