Grief

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ShkqkQhGT8

This song sums up me feelings on this Christmas

Make Something Beautiful

Listen to the song too...

http://youtu.be/U28b350agHM

Make Something Beautiful ~ Laura Story



When Im at the point of breaking at the place where I resign,
And Im at the stage of shaking my head as I look back on my life,
When Im halfway through the grieving, but not quite through the ache,
When I cannot see the ending, Or which road Im supposed to take,
All i know to do is lift my hands to you..

Chorus:
Take all of my life, all of my life,
All I know to do is lift my hands to You.
And make something beautiful.
I open my hand, trusting Your plan.
Make something beautiful so all will see
Your work in me, as You make something beautiful


When Im tired of pretending, and I cant recall my lines,
Do I say, Im barely breathing., or just say, Im doing fine.
I admit there is a yearning, for the hurting to subside,
But not at the risk of missing what Your doing with my life
All i know to do is lift my hands to you

Christmas

While everyone else is out shopping for the perfect gifts or baking cookies with their families I still do not want Christmas to come. This week would normally be the most exciting week of the year for me yet this year I am dreading Christmas even coming. I hope that one day I will be excited about Christmas again but that will not be this year for sure.

As I sat in the airport just a few days ago I was feeling like Christmas should not even be coming at all. I was thinking that most of the people there where traveling to see their family and friends for the holidays and here I was wanting so bad to be in Heaven instead of anywhere on this earth. The question that keeps coming to mind is why did I not feel this way before Jimmy was in Heaven? Why did I not long to be in Heaven with Jesus regardless of who else was there with him?

I am to focus on the eternal not that of this world, yet I focused more on my earthly husband than I did on my eternal husband...Jesus. I promise you my heart is in Heaven now...and I feel so much like this world is NOT my home and never will be my home. Jimmy was the best husband I could have asked for however Jesus is perfect! Why do we forget that? Why do we forget that Jesus loves us far more than any human ever could? The only thing we have to compare it to is those here on earth...but Jesus will NEVER let you down, He will NEVER say the wrong thing, He will NOT hurt you...He ONLY wants the best for you and me.

Even though I do NOT want this Christmas to come Jesus knows that and is right there beside me even though I didn't want it to come! I have to lean on Him no matter what...Jesus is unchangeable, He is the only constant in anyone's life. It makes more sense to lean on Him than to lean on any human...He will NEVER leave me or forsake me. Thank You LORD for loving me enough to carry me through this very hard time in my life. You are AMAZING!!!!

My Needs

As I talked to my friend last night I realized that I have not let myself feel for the last 2 months. I have put up these walls around me...work, people, internet..DISTRACTION!!! Anything that helps me to keep my mind off of the fact that I am in pain. So many people will tell you that you NEED to be busy, that you NEED to do something to keep your mind off of your loved one. I don't want to take my mind off of Jimmy...especially not during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Why do people think that THEY know what is best for me? If I want to spend a day by myself even a holiday then that is what I am going to do...end of story! I really felt like I should spend Thanksgiving alone but due to the fact that so many people told me I should not be alone I felt that they knew better than I did. But I NEED to be able to take the time to remember Jimmy and to grieve.

There are 2 things that I really cannot deal with hearing from anyone...

1. How are you?...if you really want to know then ask if you don't want to hear that my life sucks right now then don't ask!!

2. I understand or I know how you feel...NO YOU DON'T!!!  First of all if you did not lose your spouse you can't even begin to imagine how it feels to  literally have half of you gone, second if you lost someone that is much older than you as in a grandparent it is not the same due to the fact that it is the natural order of life. You have not walked even one day in my shoes so please don't try to think you have.

So I am telling you what I know I NEED not what you think I NEED...please don't ask me how I am especially right now...Christmas is almost here and all I want this year is to have Jimmy back...how do you think I feel? I also don't NEED you telling what you think I NEED because you are not me and you can't possibly know what is best for me. And last but NOT least...do NOT tell me you know how I feel or that you understand what I am going through...You can't understand everything that Jimmy and I went through during our time together therefore you can't even begin to understand how I now feel without him.

There are going to be days that I NEED to be left alone, so I might not answer the phone or email you back it does NOT mean that I don't like you or don't ever want to talk to you again, it simply means I need space and time to heal that day. I might not want to do anything on Christmas and that is ok...this is about my healing NOT about what is best for someone else! Please don't be offended when I am moody during these holidays, it sucks to be in this place right now.

I really just want to crawl into a hole and hibernate until about July 16, 2012 yet this will NOT make anything better because when I got up it would still all be there to deal with...every emotion under the sun. I still feel like my emotions are bipolar at times and it is irritating. But this is something that I have to learn to deal with I guess...Lord help me.

                                                                                                                                                     

5 Months Down and a Lifetime to Go...

Today marks 5 months without my wonderful husband...it seems like yesterday that he kissed me goodnight yet it seems like he has been gone forever. I am learning to see things in a new way, when I see an airplane instead of falling apart I smile and think "Jimmy will always be here with me." When Max curls up next to me in bed, sometimes I still get irritated but most of the time I remember that Jimmy always said "his purring puts me to sleep." That is why Jimmy liked to have Max sleep right beside him on the bed. Instead of thinking all the time how terrible it is that I don't have Jimmy with me anymore I think how blessed I am that I got to spend 2 years married to him and another year getting to know him. He helped to make me who I am today, he was so much more like Christ than me and he helped me to be more like HIM too. I am so thankful that he loved me so much that it mattered to him that my character be more like Jesus.

Do I still have times when I am angry, irritated at the world & depressed? YES! Almost every day I have at least one of these feelings/emotions. I would like for a day without bipolar emotions, without moments of hopelessness, a day without crying, a day without memories that bring pain, a day without the feeling that something is lacking...and the list goes on. Some people think that grieving is over within 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, a year...I promise you it does not end in this amount of time. When someone dies those that are left behind will never be the same. I deal with the fact that Jimmy is in Heaven every single day! I am left without my husband, without the future we planned, without his laughter and sense of humor, without his sweet smile, without...without...without. The thing that you have to understand is that when you lose someone that you love who was a huge part of your life your life does not go back to "normal" because now there is a piece missing. And when that loss was not expected, was before the person's time or someone that was very young it is even worse. In your mind and your world they were never supposed to die when they did. It is the hardest thing that I have ever gone through in my life. And to be honest I hope and pray that I never have to go through anything harder...

It is a choice every day to not give into being angry, irritated & depressed. All of these emotions come at me every day, I have to choose to not let it consume me. I have to choose to focus on the Lord and not let the despair consume me. We are all faced with this kind of choice each day. When someone cuts you off in traffic do you get angry at them and yell at them even though they will never hear you, or do you pray for them and ask God to make their day better and for their safety? When you are irritated because you have to stand in a long line as you are shopping last minute do you take it out on the cashier or do you treat them as you would want to be treated? When a situation in your life does not go your way do you give into depression or do you seek the Lord's will in your life? You see it does not take grief to have each of these emotions we all face the possibility of them each and every day. It is our choice to either let them consume us or to let it go and let the Lord do what it is that He wants to do in your life. It should not take the loss of a loved one for us to turn our life over to God, sometimes it just does take that and He is asking you why did it take that in the first place? It is time to open up your hands and let go of all the hurt, pain, anger, depression, short temper and so on...it is time to let your hands and heart be filled with Jesus! Let Him have control of your life, that is how it was meant to be in the first place. Stop trying to make sure everything in your life turns out the way you want it and trust (rely on with confidence of the outcome) on Jesus!

Blessings

This week at work I was privileged to be able to see 2 Christmas programs from local schools (and I get to see 2 more next week)! They came to Brookwood to sing for our citizens!! It was great to see the kids from these schools come out and interact with our citizens...they were so caring and respectful. The students that came were from public schools yet they sang CHRISTmas songs!! It is so great to see the real meaning of CHRISTmas even from the students at a public school. Yet again I feel so blessed with the job that the Lord himself has placed me in!

I also want to say that Max in the most loved cat ever. He has 5-7 people that ask about him every day. And now that they understand that I will be in Pittsburgh for Christmas they all want to know who is going to take care of him while I am gone. They are so sweet and caring, they even care about my furry son :)

Choosing to see the positive

For those of you that know me you know that at times I can be very patient then with other things I tend to have absolutely no patients at all. Today the heat was finally fixed in my workshop after 2 days  without it. This morning the temperature was down to 47 on the inside...yikes! My hands and nose felt as though they were going to fall off. I was frustrated with the fact that it felt like Pittsburgh on the inside of the building...my lack of patience.  Due to the fact that it felt like the north pole in our workshop we all went over to the cafeteria where we watched Christmas movies.

While we were there one of the men that I serve wanted to play solitaire, he is 70 half blind and half deaf, watching him play takes patience all in itself. So then I put the cards out to play a game myself, he sat there with me as I played. As I went through the cards over and over again I got frustrated that I could not do anything else. Then as I went through one more time he said "stop"...he saw that I could move a few cards around and get a little further in the game.

I think that the Lord is trying to teach me a few things lately and patience is at the top of the list I guess. My choice of how to look at my situation is also something that the Lord is teaching me. That same 70 year old man had a situation where last Saturday where he slumped over in his wheel chair and was very confused. I went with him to the clinic and had flash backs of when Jimmy was in the hospital on July 15th. It was so hard to be there with him as they went through triage right there in the clinic. As it turns out there was nothing wrong, every test that they preformed came back negative.

As I told a friend about this situation she said what if God let this happen while you were there to be with the man in order for you to go through it with a good outcome. Does God want me to understand that not everyone in my life is going to die? Does he want me to understand that His plan in the best? Does He want me to learn to fully trust HIM no matter what? I believe that the Lord does want me to look at each situation and trust Him and to believe that He will take care of me no matter what. Sometimes I just forget to think about my hard situations that way...instead I think about the fact that I am hurting, I didn't get my way or that I know what is best. But I don't!!

So I will choose to see every situation as God's plan and choose to see how it can be worked together for my good. I will choose to see the positive instead of the negative all the time. Thank you Lord for teaching me to see the world through your eyes and not my own.