Off to School

Les just left for a hazmat refresher up in Port Hueneme, he'll be gone today and be back Friday night then off again Sunday and home for good on the 9th.  This coming weekend is his 50th birthday and I wanted to celebrate it with a party with all of his old friends but I'm glad the planning was not done since them sending him to this school came up literally, last week on Wednesday.  I would have been more than slightly peeved if it had ruined those plans.

Regardless, what this post is about is me missing him. We often spend week days and weekends interacting briefly after I get home from work, sometimes it totals no more than 45 minutes.  He is usually plugged into his computer by the time I get home.  I go back into my room to chill after spending quality time in the same room with him catching up on my facebook and email.  We may/may not eat together due to his hunger needs.  I know if I pushed it or nagged him we would spend more time but if it isn't where his heart is...  But I know he is a loner at heart and always has been.  Most of his pursuits have been a single player "sport".  But I know that he will miss me as well.

I'm such a big baby about stuff like this, always have been.  I'll just have to spend my time being productive about his birthday since I'll have all of this time to do it unfettered.  

It's just that well, he's my lobster.

It's the little things

I've actually done pretty well the last two days, no tears and even a spring in my step again. I'm no Little Mary Sunshine but I can't stay in a fugue for very long before I snap out of it.  I'm just not made that way.  God has everything to do with it.  It was as if I could feel Him reach down from heaven, tuck His finger under my chin, and lift my face toward Him to remind me all that I need is with Him and in His power.  I only cried a little bit reading Donna's blog today, just a teensy bit, then I sent a fervent prayer for comfort and it passed  quickly.

Donna will be getting up in a little bit to get started with helping get ready for her church Thanksgiving.  I know she and Aaron will have a wonderful day spent with plenty of people thrilled that they are there.  Donna is built like me, she blossoms in a large group setting, loves the energy of that type of gathering.  I used to have them to enjoy in the past, first during my childhood holiday gatherings with my family and my dad's then as a teenager with my mom's extended family.  As a young Navy wife we would gather all the stray singletons still in town during the holidays and had them come to our place for dinner with our other military family/friends.  When the girls were little we would spend them with my mom's brother and my cousins at their place.  But in the last 10 years since Les has retired, it has just been our little family and a couple of the kid's friends and/or their boyfriends.

It's just not the same as the big family or "family for now" gatherings that I've always enjoyed.  This year will be extra quiet without Donna and Aaron.  But somehow God has pulled it off and I'm actually excited about tomorrow and whatever it brings.  If you had asked me just this past Sunday I would have told you I'd prefer to just pull the covers over my head, hide out watching tv on my computer, eating junk food and crying until it passed.  But God has blessed me with a new perspective and while I can't quite rejoice that Donna and Aaron won't be here.  I am very happy that they will have a wonderful day with those that they are among.

I keep finding small silver linings each day to put in my "box of gratitude".  I don't actually have a box, but I think I might just make one and have the inaugural kick off tomorrow.  Then open it next year on Thanksgiving to see what made me grateful throughout the year.  I know I won't be so consistent as to get something in every day, I'm just not that good.

Anyway, I just thank you Lord, my loving Father, that you care enough for me to not let me suffer for too long before pulling me out of my misery to enjoy the gifts you have so lovingly lavished on me.  I just pray that I can continue to remember this every time I'm tempted to be ungrateful.

Even so, Father, it is good in Your sight.

Even so

Yesterday I couldn't do this but today I can.  Sometimes I think my grief over Donna moving to Germany is like being poisoned.  Each dose of the antidote helps me to recover, but I have to vomit it out to really get better. Yesterday was the worst of it, I know I will continue to have bouts, but at least today, I haven't cried about it even once.  A vast improvement really.

I really didn't want to go to church yesterday, I even toyed with the idea of telling Les I didn't feel like going knowing full well he would be totally on board and ready to skip it.  But the very fact that I seriously didn't want to go tipped me off that I really NEEDED to go.  It's always the way it works for me, the times I really don't want to, God has something important for me to hear that day in service.  This time was no different than the others.  Phil did a Thanksgiving sermon emphasizing the thanks, the gratitude that we should have towards God.  Even when we don't feel like it, even when we are at a point in life that there seems to be nothing to be grateful about. Even when we are the valley of the shadow of death (okay, that was just for dramatic effect-though true).  But you understand what I a driving at. Basically when we cannot find any redeeming value in the circumstances we find ourselves in "Even so, Father, it seemed good in Your sight." Luke 10:21  Meaning, we may not understand how this trial could ever possibly seem good not now, not ever.  God can.  God has the benefit of seeing time with a better vantage point than we do.  He can see the benefit of our experiences for the future understanding that the pain and anguish we feel now, will temper over time and allow us to see things differently, if not clearly, after it has all passed.

He said that being thankful during good times is easy.  The hard part is to be thankful during hard times and even to be thankful for the trials themselves.  That this time is a time of going through the Refiner's fire.  That in order to make us pure, we need to be heated up to melting (trials) so that the Refiner can scoop the impurities off the top and make us more pure.  I knew this already, I learned this when I was a baby Christian.  Somehow I either forgot it or was simply too blinded by my situation to remember it.  It has been a long time since I have had such a trial that it has brought me to my knees crying out "Abba, Father!".

That in itself is a blessing, that my life has been so good for so long.  Or that I have been so lax in my relationship with God that I wasn't walking closely enough with Him.  Either way the end result is I have now entered the fire and Lord knows, I'm starting to melt.

Even so, Father, it seems good in Your sight.

Going, Going, Gone

So they are gone, it is not as hard as when Donna went to York but in some ways it is more heart breaking.  York was for 4 1/2 months, literally, only God knows how long she will be gone this time.  I want to rejoice in the fact that God is using her so mightily and that she is so willing to follow where He would have her go. And I know that in time, I will be able to feel that first. But I will always miss her, I will always yearn to have her near me. It will always feel as if I am missing a limb.

I went to Michael's today to pick up some stuff and ended up in the yarn section, that's where Donna and I always ended up, looking at the different yarns and talking about projects we had started or wanted to start and how perfect a particular yarn would be for it.  It was all I could do not to cry, and in the end, I got out of there as fast as I could and cried most of the way home.  It's not just that store, it's a bunch of them, and this time of the year, knowing that all of the stuff we liked to do with each other is over and I'm left so alone now.  She totally understood how this time of year was so special to me because it is so special to her and she would share in the same delight I had planning our "thing" to give to our friends.  Now I am alone in this, Jo doesn't really care about the holidays and neither does Les.  They participate, but it has no special meaning or feelings of happiness for them. And for now, I feel that way too.

God, please help me to get over this grief, this feeling that I've lost a child to death, because that is the only way I can accurately describe how this affects me. I know that I will grow in this very shadowy valley, that this season will be used somehow in the future.  But for the moment, this knowledge is pretty cold comfort.