Thanksgiving turned out Great! The week and a half leading up to Thanksgiving was very hard for me. Grief hit me hard and I pretty much cried every night before going to bed. I just kept seeing my mom's face and her words to me the Saturday night before she died. It just made me so sad and I was just wanting to hold onto her so much, I did not want to let go.
When we got to dad's the day before Thanksgiving, I was still in grief mode. He could tell. On Thanksgiving Day we were about to head to the farm and dad asked, 'Are you alright?' and I just melted in his arms and started crying. We had our moment and then we all just took a deep breath and headed for the farm. We had a great meal and wonderful fellowship there. It took the edge off my grief to be around family. After the farm, we headed to Lee and Jeans mansion(as Keegan calls it). We had good fellowship there too. I was exhausted by the end of the night. Needless to say, exhaustion and yummy food in my belly led to a Great nights sleep:)
The rest of our time with dad and family was wonderful. We needed to be there. Grief has started to move on out and peace and hope have returned and it makes me feel at rest. I know that grief will come and go these next few months, but I pray it won't be as bad as it has been the last couple of weeks. The Lord was my Shepherd, thankfully, and therefore I walked that shadow of the valley of death hand in hand with Him and that is why I believe I am coming out of it, because its the power of God.
I am so thankful for my family who has been tremendously supportive. I am thankful to finally feel apart of family in a way I have never felt before, I finally feel secure in this family thing. I am thankful to have two great jobs. I am thankful to have a roof over my head, clean water, food on my table, warmth, shoes, clothes. I am so thankful that no matter what the future holds, my God is unchanging and so is my Hope in Him. I am thankful for my mom who instilled in me many things, especially a love for God's Word. I miss her greatly, but am thankful she is with Jesus and all the heavenly host! What glorious peace that is.
I hope all of your Thanksgiving's were blessed. I would love to hear about them and to hear how God blessed you this season. I love you all a lot!
NChrist,
Susan
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Living without Mom
Tommorow, it will have been two weeks since mom died. I can't believe it will have been two weeks. How does time fly so fast? It seems so surreal. Thankfully, my faith is not wavering, nor my joy and hope. However, grief is here now in my heart. This is an emotion I have felt rarely while my mom was still on this earth. The Lord gave me a supernatural ability to be strong and full of joy. And those things are still strong, but there is loss now and with it comes grief and mourning and my plan is to let it stay a while and do the work on me that must be done for me to get through this valley. I believe there is a purpose for grief to have its way with me now. I see now that too many people let grief get the best of them and there I moments where I can see how grief could take over if I let it. But, that is unhealthy. God wants me to learn what grief has have for me and to let God heal my hurts and my pain at the loss of my mom. He wants me to experience His healing balm and it will be a precious time between me and Him. I am assured of that.
Mom's visitation and funeral were beautiful. I was afraid the visitation would be a total bummer, but instead it was a day full of celebrating my mom's life and it was sooooo uplifting. The morning of her visitation, we were framing pictures of mom because she wished to have a closed casket. We needed 2 more frames, so Michael and I headed to Sam's. Michael called me over to a certain aisle because he had found something cool. And there in front of me, sat 4 digital frames. I had seen these around, but at that moment it just hit me how cool it would be to have one of these at Visitation. We took it home and for the next two hours the three of us had a project. Get pictures and music on this thing. It ended up being beautiful. We had about 20 pictures and classical music playing with it. There were times at the Funeral Home that we had a three rows filled with people just watching this thing and it made my heart so full! I was really glad mom wanted a closed casket, because even though they did a great job at making mom look gorgeous; something about her did not look like her. Many unexpected people showed up and it warmed our hearts to see these people.
The funeral was exactly what mom wanted. She had written out what she wanted. She wanted people to share stories if they like, she did not want a sermon, instead she wrote out Theological points she wanted communicated about God, a verse to communicate that and a song to end each point with. It was done beatifully by our friend Sid. I had asked mom if she wanted a preacher to preach and she said, 'No, I believe Scripture speaks louder than man.' I was wowed by that! The burial was awesome. The church that she is buried at is on the property of our families farm in Glasgow. So, Sid read the 23 Psalm and as he read 'let me lie down in green pastures and lead my beside still waters' we were looking at the pasture land and the pond below. How perfect can that get:) Lastly, our 11 year old friend played Amazing Grace on her violin(she is brillant on it by the way) and it was so amazing, no words can describe. It was a perfect ending.
We went to the farm afterwards for food and then onto dad's cousins house that evening for dinner. All the get togethering was so needed. But when we got home to my parents house, everything hit me. I will not see her again, until heaven. She is really gone and I just cried my heart out. We just hugged each other and cried.
This last week has been hard, having to get back into the swings of life with work and ministry and stuff. The quiet moments I get hit by waves of grief. And I thankfully, find peace and rest in God. What would I do without Him. He is my refuge and I praise Him.
I can't wait to get to Bowling Green this week for Thanksgiving and spend time with family, I greatly miss them.
Keep praying for us as we go through our grief. The Lord will be our Shepherd and I am thankful.
I love you all lots and I thank you for all your support, you are too wonderful to me!
NChrist,
Susan
Mom's visitation and funeral were beautiful. I was afraid the visitation would be a total bummer, but instead it was a day full of celebrating my mom's life and it was sooooo uplifting. The morning of her visitation, we were framing pictures of mom because she wished to have a closed casket. We needed 2 more frames, so Michael and I headed to Sam's. Michael called me over to a certain aisle because he had found something cool. And there in front of me, sat 4 digital frames. I had seen these around, but at that moment it just hit me how cool it would be to have one of these at Visitation. We took it home and for the next two hours the three of us had a project. Get pictures and music on this thing. It ended up being beautiful. We had about 20 pictures and classical music playing with it. There were times at the Funeral Home that we had a three rows filled with people just watching this thing and it made my heart so full! I was really glad mom wanted a closed casket, because even though they did a great job at making mom look gorgeous; something about her did not look like her. Many unexpected people showed up and it warmed our hearts to see these people.
The funeral was exactly what mom wanted. She had written out what she wanted. She wanted people to share stories if they like, she did not want a sermon, instead she wrote out Theological points she wanted communicated about God, a verse to communicate that and a song to end each point with. It was done beatifully by our friend Sid. I had asked mom if she wanted a preacher to preach and she said, 'No, I believe Scripture speaks louder than man.' I was wowed by that! The burial was awesome. The church that she is buried at is on the property of our families farm in Glasgow. So, Sid read the 23 Psalm and as he read 'let me lie down in green pastures and lead my beside still waters' we were looking at the pasture land and the pond below. How perfect can that get:) Lastly, our 11 year old friend played Amazing Grace on her violin(she is brillant on it by the way) and it was so amazing, no words can describe. It was a perfect ending.
We went to the farm afterwards for food and then onto dad's cousins house that evening for dinner. All the get togethering was so needed. But when we got home to my parents house, everything hit me. I will not see her again, until heaven. She is really gone and I just cried my heart out. We just hugged each other and cried.
This last week has been hard, having to get back into the swings of life with work and ministry and stuff. The quiet moments I get hit by waves of grief. And I thankfully, find peace and rest in God. What would I do without Him. He is my refuge and I praise Him.
I can't wait to get to Bowling Green this week for Thanksgiving and spend time with family, I greatly miss them.
Keep praying for us as we go through our grief. The Lord will be our Shepherd and I am thankful.
I love you all lots and I thank you for all your support, you are too wonderful to me!
NChrist,
Susan
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