"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get". We are all familiar with that quote from Forrest Gump, right?
That quote has run through my mind a few hundred times in the last couple of months. Our family has been given something quite unexpected. Our box of chocolates have given us something we didn't think we would ever get. I mean, really, who can ever anticipate an event so tragic in life?
The night we received the call that Grace had been in a car accident (Jimmy, my brother in law, called Jim as Sara, my sister, called me to give the news to come to the hospital) each of us in different rooms simultaneously having the same shock response. Screaming and crying with horror and disbelief...
A few pieces of chocolate that never could have been imagined....and yet here we are. My blogs are probably more like journal entries I share instead of pieces of written art, yet this is my therapy. Just like it was when my dad died.
The following thoughts are a few pieces of chocolate from my box these days. I would rather trade them in then endure this hardship but that is not our option so instead we press on and try to wrap our brains around this cross we are now forced to bare. The following words are just a few of thoughts that race through my mind most lately:
The definition Webster gives of a niece and cousin opposed to how our family defines those terms. Webster says they are a simple blood line connection of ancestors. Yet our definition of nieces and cousins means something quite a bit deeper. It has meant living and doing life next to each other day in and day out together for the last 17 years of Gracie's life. The five of our girls have lived life so closely that most of the time the sister and cousin lines have gotten blurred. Most of the time my sister and I just referred to them as our five girls. Together. A family unbroken.
Another thought. I've wanted to explain to everyone and anyone who would listen that in many instances when you are down this deep, if you are not careful, watchful and intentional, the enemy of our souls can come in dressed like an angel of light tempting you to take up trivial causes that will steal your emotional energy needed to grieve. He tempts you to divert your attention from grief to something unproductive like anger, jealousy, bitterness and unforgiveness. I have to be intentional with this one. It is a battle I refuse to participate in or give in to. I refuse to get caught up in battles that are not mine to fight and that will take me captive. I choose instead to fight against every thing that tempts me to be filled with anything contrary to the fruits of the Spirit.
I know this happens all to often to people fighting battles where they misplace their energy on what they see in the natural thinking that is the real problem...it isn't. We are in a spiritual battle that is unseen and our enemy would like nothing more to knock you off course chasing the pain of every other thing then what you are suppose to be fighting. Grief is the only thing we are fighting through right now. Everything else is a waste of my emotional energy. I know this is a real temptation because Satan tempted me with this after my dad died. I wanted causes to fight for. I wanted to put my emotion into anything that would take my mind off the pain I was really feeling. Fighting with and for other things gave me ample opportunities to divert my attention to something that would keep me captive. Anger, offenses, jealousy and pride were all offered up to me to steal my attention and focus on those things instead of staying the course and grieving properly. There were ample emotions to throw myself into that were meaningless leaving me fighting things that were not mine to fight. In doing that it prolonged my grieving process. I focused on the wrong things...tripping up listening to the complaints of those around me and in doing that it met my need to fix, fight and help something tangible. Grief wasn't tangible. I needed to fight something I could see and satan gave me plenty to fight against except those things left me feeling worse than the actual grief itself. I gave too much time and emotional energy to relationships thinly veiled as friendships as I tried to help but they only drained me and bogged me down with trivial problems and insecurities and that left me taking on unnecessary pain that kept me feeling empty and more broken and angry than the actual loss of my dad.
Nope. I decided this time to not do that again. I am very aware of that temptation again this time. I choose to rise above the temptation of taking the bait that would drain me. This life lesson is firmly intact this time around as I work through grief (I pray that I don't have another time of grief to compare this one to any time soon).
Satan wants to trip you up with anything he can in order to get you to stay stagnant in your walk with God by tempting you to let anger, jealousy, bitterness, resentment, hurt feelings and offenses in and take over. They will tear you up. Trust me. Rise above all of those things. Let them go because otherwise they will pull you under.
Another chocolate in my box right now is this. I've wanted to explain how it is that I (we) can smile at events. How can I (we) hold it together to get through a design meeting, church service, banquet, outing or whatever. It is God. Simply. It's His strength. Honestly. He gives me the strength long enough to hold it together and make it through only to get in the car and get smacked with the reality again that we are hurting. That we lost our 17 year old niece and then I sob. I mean deep ugly cry kind of sob. It is a heart wrenching cry from the depths of who I am and for so many different reasons.
I cry from the heart break I feel for my sweet little sister who I love more than words express and that I have spent the greater part of my life wanting to be there for. I see in her eyes the pain of something awful and a thing no mother should ever have to endure. Ever. The loss of her firstborn daughter. I cry for my brother in law for the same reason and for Evelyn who won't have a sister to steal clothes from, or lay on their bed together and talk about boys with, or do their hair or nails with or be the maid of honor in each others weddings or be an aunt to each others kids...just to name a few of the myriad of things that bring a permanent ache to my heart. I cry because I can see the look of absolute pain in my sister's eyes as we knowingly look at each other and ask ourselves how? How did we get here? How do you endure this kind of pain...this kind of loss? I ask myself and God how are they going through this 'worst case scenario' kind of tragedy? How do we pick up the pieces? How do we rebuild? We don't. We know God does though.
I cry when I look into my oldest daughter, Emma's, eyes. She is so much like her daddy that it makes me proud. Her strength and wisdom is unparalleled for a 16 year old young lady. Yet the pain and loss is so evident behind her eyes. She won't announce it. She won't beg for the attention of someone to help her. She won't break down in front of the world. But I know. I know because I am her mom. I know she cries into her pillow at night. I know that she is enduring a pain so great that she can't even begin to articulate the loss of her best friend, cousin/sister. I know she puts on a face and endures walking into a school absent of her best friend and she has to walk through those halls that once brought joy but now they are the valley of the shadow of death. Every. Single. Day. Those halls are a blaring reminder of the kind of loss no teen should ever have to endure. A pain that will take years to show how deep that wound really is. She and Grace were inseparable since the day Grace came to the hospital and welcomed her into this world. Now Emma has to endure Grace leaving this same world she welcomed her into...she left to early...much to early. Their bond was an instant bond. Grace has been a staple relationship in her life when others have left. Grace has encouraged Emma. She challenged Emma. She loved Emma so completely and deeply with a love so authentic and unconditional that it leaves me praying that that love will be carried in her heart for the rest of her life. But now. Now there is just intense pain and brokenness.
I cry for my middle daughter, Brooke, because she doesn't have her big cousin to jump into the arms of anymore and hang on like a little monkey clinging to her mama as they would laugh and bounce around together. I cry for that joy taken away from her. I cry for my youngest daughter, Maya, who affectionately (for as long as I can remember) called Grace 'her twin'...Grace and Maya were the bookends of our family...they had the same heart and kindred spirit and now that is gone. This kind of pain washes over us daily, sometimes moment by moment, as we remember who we have lost.
I cry for my mom who lost her best friend six years ago now only to find herself in a different kind of grief. A grief no adult should ever have to endure. The loss of a child. A grandchild. The loss of a life not lived out. A life taken unfairly from her. From us. The most unnatural kind of grief.
I explained this to a person one week after Grace died. I said grief is a crazy thing. It makes you feel bi polar. One moment you are pulled together smiling and the next you are one big hot mess. Everyone though mostly sees you smiling and interacting and the assumption by most is that you are alright. They see that we are moving forward and we are.... for the most part.
I have tons of Scripture in my heart reminding me daily how we move forward in this. I learned from the pitfalls the last time I walked through this valley. I know that despite this box of chocolates we have been given that my God really is faithful in the midst of our storms. I can tell you how thankful I am for the valley of the shadow of death after my dad died because I have learned to lean into God in the darkest of times and watched how He carried us then just like He is now. I have seen how God is always good and loving even when life doesn't make a lick of sense. I am trusting that what the enemy did for evil God will use for good. I could tell you that our theology is sound and we understand the concept of free will and the ins and outs of its beauties and atrocities (that double edged sword we call life). I have to believe that He WILL bring beauty from this heap of ashes we are sifting through. All these thoughts run through my head daily. Moment by moment reminding me and my family that our God is bigger than anything we can see with our natural eye. He is bigger than this pain we are carrying right now. It doesn't take the pain away but these Truths keep me focused on the character of God in the midst of tragedy.
So until we make it to the other side of grief I will continue to smile at events because an ugly cry isn't socially acceptable. It
makes people uncomfortable. Death and unanswered questions make people
nervous. I don't know why Grace died. Why in the matter of two seconds
did this man swerve and hit her killing her instantly? I don't know why
but I do know that Grace loved Jesus with every ounce of her person. I
do know that we will all get to see her and my daddy again one day.
These facts are what keep me from going crazy. I can't ask the why's
because they will hurt more than the death itself. Asking why will keep
stinging with no reprieve. So instead of trying to answer the why's of
this box of chocolates I instead sit and wait patiently not asking why
but rather 'how'. God, how will you make this one work out for good?
He will keep faithfully showing us the 'hows". How we will adapt to this new normal. Knowing God doesn't take away the pain of grief at this moment. Knowing God just gives us the hope that this pain won't ruin us. That He will faithfully carry us...just as He has in the past. It is still a process we must endure as a family but we have hope and that our God is our help, comfort and strength.
We serve a faithful God who truly is miraculously with our broken hearts. He is binding up our wounds one stitch at a time. Despite the fact that my world is hurting, breaking and busting at the seams in my family in every direction I look, I know that God is with us and that is where my weary heart finds rest.
Here I sit, holding this box of chocolates. Honestly, though I can't wait for the next box to come. Maybe that box will have caramel or snickers or something good but until then I hold onto God because I am certain He holds me as I hold on to Him and walks me through all this life gives me. Unexpected to me or not He is right there in the middle of it all.
Amy Elizabeth
