The wave of grief is here again. The white water rapids It seems to be 100 feet tall today crushing and breaking me with every crashing of the surf. 
I feel like Solomon; like I am chasing the wind. I try to make some sense of where my life is today. You HOPE that your journey thirteen years down the road would make more sense. As I was reading in Psalm 42 this morning I felt like this was speaking straight into where I am walking this morning.
“Sometimes I ask God, my rock-solid God, why did you let me down? Why am I walking around in tears, harassed by enemies? They’re out for the kill, these tormenters with their obscenities, taunting day after day, where is this God of yours? ”
Over and over again the waves come crashing in. My pain rises like the surf and hurts so badly that I find myself crashing down to the dark turbulent abyss.
Sometimes people have external wounds. We can see the scars from where the wounds were once present on the body. We can actually see where the healing happened. But what about the internal wounds? The ones that are present in the inner depths of our heart, the ones that never completely heal. My heart holds within it too many wounds. Two of the greatest, the tragic loss of a child and a husband who fatally succumbed to suicide. It seems that those deep wounds within the heart never fully scar over. It only takes a trigger or a memory for it to be ripped open all over again. It feels like its full of infection brewing and smoldering within. I find myself hanging on to that dangling thread of hope suspended over the dark pit that once held me in its grasp. The torment coming in waves. Crying out to the only one who can pick me up. I hear over and over again “MY grace is sufficient for you.” Today I am desperately seeking that grace.
If you are like me, you want the life of your loved one to mean more than the few short years you had with them and the memories that you try so hard to hang onto. You want all this mess and your unscarred wounds to have some sort of meaning. I find myself trying so hard to hang on to the promises that God has given me somewhere along the way. His word says, “He promises to love me all day, and My life is his prayer!” (Psalm 42 msg.) During these times I have to remember and rehearse everything I know of Him. In the middle of my mess, when I feel like I am drowning in the thundering breakers, I know that if I fix my eyes on Him…soon I will be praising again and he will put a smile on my face! He’s my God!
#suicide #lossofchild #bereavement #grief #grieving #IKnow #Treasuredtears #loss
Beverly Shoemaker 