Memories and Love

    on Saturday, September 24, 2011 at 12:57pm

Making new memories has to be the hardest part of grief.
Making memories without Jimmy just seems so empty to me. For the first month
not only did I not want to take any pictures at all I didn’t want anyone to
take any pictures of me either. I didn’t
want to have physical reminders that I have memories without Jimmy. Why is it
that my life has to go on? Why will God not answer my prayer for Him to take me
like He took Jimmy? The grief is so hard and painful at times that I really
just want Him to take me off of this earth…I want to be in Heaven with Jesus
and Jimmy. I am not saying that I would ever take my own life…I just want the
pain to stop. I want people to stop acting as though 3 years of knowing Jimmy
is less important than what they shared with him. For Heaven’s sake you cannot
compare my loss with yours because Jimmy and I were one flesh!!

'Therefore a man
shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let
not man separate." Matthew 19:5-6


God Himself joined us together as one through our covenant
of marriage…please stop telling me that you knew Jimmy longer and trying to
make my grief less!! People tried to split us up while Jimmy was alive and now
that spirit of division is still at work. Someone please tell me how anyone can
actually think that they have more to grieve? I have lost my husband, my best
friend, my lover, my protector, my other half, my business partner, my
companion, my family, my dreams of children with Jimmy, our dream of growing
old together, our dream of becoming missionaries together, our dream of
renewing our vows in Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary, our dream of adopting
children that need good parents, our dreams of children growing up and going to
college...getting married…having kids of their own someday, Our dream of going
to India, our dreams of many more holidays, birthdays, years together…I think I
have made my point. For anyone that
thinks they lost more than me and wants to keep telling me that STOP!!! I don’t
want to heart it ever again. I still can’t believe that things like “I knew him
X amount of years and you ONLY knew him for 3”, has even been said to me as a
widow. Ok enough of that tangent.

I went to Galveston for a few days and it was a good time to
reflect on what has happened in the past 2 ½ months…I cannot and will not allow
myself to be in a relationship with anyone that abuses me, emotionally or physically.
When I am made to feel over and over again that I am not and was not important
to my husband that is abuse in my book…and you will no longer be in a
relationship with me! I also had time to think about memories…those that I had
with my wonderful husband…those that we didn’t get to make together…and those
that I want to make in the future. I want to have those around me that only
want that best for me and want good memories for my future. I want people
around me that support me and build me up not talk about me behind my back and
put a knife in it so to speak when I’m not looking.

I have come to a conclusion: people that abuse me with not
be allowed in my life anymore, and I have to carry on the legacy that Jimmy
left behind. He stood of for the truth no matter the cost to him, he loved
people (all people) without conditions, he also knew who to keep close to him
and who he needed distance from, he knew that relationships are far more
important in this life than work, he lived out what Christ taught us LOVE. Jimmy
loved God so much that that love (agape) spilled over onto everyone else…he had
no choice but to love everyone because he loved God so much. And that is what
made him such an amazing husband, son, brother and friend!

"Teacher, which
is the great commandment in the Law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great
and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as
yourself. On these two commandments
depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-40


We are to love everyone, this however does not mean let
people walk all over you or abuse you. Jesus never let anyone speak bad about
His father or Truth. He only kept a select few into His inner circle…there was
a reason for this. Maybe the reason was because He knew that He could only
really pour into so many people at once, maybe He knew that it would be hard
for any more people to travel together all over the place, maybe it was because
that is how many tribes there were and they were supposed to go out and
minister to those tribes…who knows Jesus did not tell us Himself we are left
guessing. However we can learn from how He approached His life…love (agape=unconditional,
self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love) everyone but only
let a few into our inner circle and love (Phileo=means to have an affection for
or brotherly love) them in a different way than you would all of human kind,
then you have the love for a spouse (Eros=intimate love or romantic love) this is meant to be shared with only one
person your spouse. Also we are not told to love the sin by any means, we are
told to love the person and we are to want the best for that person and the
best would be a relationship with Jesus and for them to leave the sin behind.

We are to love
the Lord far more than we love anyone else and when we do the only thing that
will come from that is to love (agape) His people also. We will be filled with so much love by loving our Lord
more than anyone or anything else that it is a part of our very nature to love
(agape) for all of His children. So I ask you, do you love God so much that you
only want what is best for His people…that being a relationship with Jesus?