The Journey Continues…
“Then sings my soul, my Savior, God to Thee…” I had barely gotten through the first line of that song when the tears started to come. Quickly recognizing the song as one we sang at my dad’s funeral, one of my boys whispered, “Did you bring any tissues?” They know me too well. I almost always get emotional during Sunday morning worship. But today the tears flowed fast, hard, and without restraint. Today marks six months since my dad died. And the journey of grief continues. The new reality has settled in. We’ve endured some of the really hard “firsts.” The pain isn’t always so fresh, but continues to creep up unexpectedly at times. There are moments when I think to check in on him or look at the leftovers of a meal and think that it’s just enough for dad. Brief moments when I forget, but then am jolted back to reality in an instant. Other times I find myself reliving that phone call, envisioning details, desperately wanting so much of it to be different, and trying to understand why it wasn’t. It’s a one step forward, two steps back kind of journey at times.
Sundays are hard. Worship is hard, but that is the place where I feel freest to let the tears come; where I can pour myself out before God unashamed; where He reminds me who He is; where I can lift my hands and literally cry out the words that keep catching in my throat; where I rest assured that when the words just won’t come, God sees my heart. It’s where I most deeply feel the power of His truth in the midst of my pain and know that even though the loss still sucks, this isn’t the end of the story.
Six months in to this process, I can see God at work. I see Him making beauty from ashes. I bear witness to His peace even though I don’t understand it. I see the ways He is growing me, my brother, my kids. I’m even excited for the ways He is going to use this part of our story to impact the lives of others for God’s glory. God is taking this pain and transforming it into passions that He will enable us to pursue. Having the blessed assurance that He is the God who makes all things new gives me strength to stand with arms raised high, and to sing through the grief and tears that threaten to overwhelm me, “God, You’re so good, You’re so good to me.”
