…maybe I should say…anymore.

It’s not that yucky anymore.

In the beginning it was.  Oh, boy…it was!

Pain…searing…mind-numbing…constant.

Tears…all the time…millions, if I could stop to count.

Questions…from the kids…from friends...for God.

This journey…eight years today…has been the hardest I have ever been on.

But also the best.

I tell you, when half of your heart already lives in Heaven, it is easier to live here for it!

As a family, we have been able to fix our eyes more clearly and more steadily on our Heavenly reward…and our earthly purpose.

We had a good life with Keith here…joy, love, laughter…a happy, close-knit family.

As a new family, we had to find a way to have the same things.  After all, we are still here. Both Keith and God expect us to continue to live…wholly, fully, completely.

And we have!  By the grace of God alone, we have!

Is it always easy?  Nope.  But…it is always a joy.

One of my favorite scriptures has become Psalm 34:18:

 

I have had my spirit, my soul, my being, crushed by the weight of grief…only to be rebuilt by a God who loves me…and my kids…even more than Keith did.  It is good to sit in the palm of His hand!

He is as close as a breath, the center of our family’s every thought and movement.  Not perfectly, for we are not a perfect family…but consistently.

Fanny Crosby wrote a wonderful hymn that expresses so clearly what I feel on this journey:

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life with the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.

We know Him well…maybe better…for what we have been through.  My boys are growing up with first-hand knowledge of the sufficiency and provision and infinite care of our Savior.  Together, Keith and I might not have been able to teach them as well. I, too, learn to love Him better each day…walking more closely since I have no one else to follow…no distractions.

So…we will spend this anniversary day glorying in where Keith is and where we will be going…missing him here, but living for the day we can join him.

 And that, in and of itself, is enough to make it not yucky.

To God be the glory!