Nobody likes having anything cut away! 

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT THOSE THINGS THAT “LITERALLY” NEED TO BE CUT AWAY, THEY’RE MOSTLY YUCKY AND GROSS! 

A WART

GANGRENE 

A TUMOR 

EVEN MISTLETOE, THAT IS LITERALLY FUNGUS ON A TREE, NEEDS TO BE CUT AWAY OR THE TREE WILL DIE! 

NOW DON’T GET ME STARTED ON THE FACT THAT WE CUT MISTLETOE OUT OF THE TREE, THEN WE HANG IT AND KISS UNDER IT AT CHRISTMAS TIME! BUT I’M FEELING LIKE THAT’S A BLOG FOR ANOTHER TIME! 

It hurts to be cut! 

TUMORS AND CANCERS NEED TO BE CUT OUT IN ORDER FOR THE PATIENT TO LIVE, BUT THE RECOVERY IS HARD AND THERE IS USUALLY A PRICE TO PAY!

I am a terrible Gardner! I see beauty and I love beauty and I want the beauty to bloom and last and be LOOKED at. 

I get all excited when Spring comes, and the nurseries are packed full of the most gorgeous blooms, radiant with color! I pick out the most beautiful ones, I grab the best soil you can buy in a bag, beautiful pots to hold them all and even flower food!  I race home and pull out my gardening gloves and I even have a mini shovel and hoe. I plant those beautiful flowers into those pots. I place them in a beautiful arrangement all over my front patio and I water them with care, and they grow! And I just keep looking at them and enjoy them as they grow bigger and bigger! And I know that I’m supposed to start pruning and cutting away at them, but I don’t. I don’t want to cut the beautiful color away! I just want to look at them and enjoy their beauty! I am a terrible gardener for one main reason: I don’t want to cut anything away! Before I know it, it’s the beginning of summer, I’m off school, I dump the pots out into the gardening bin and out falls dead, flowers! I go to the nursery and start all over again! Problem is in order to be beautiful and fully bloom plants must be cut back and pruned!

The saying is actually true! It literally does “cut both ways!”

The flower does bloom, and it is radiant and beautiful, but then the bloom fades away and in order for it to grow and bloom again it must be cut back! And when it is cut back, it will bloom sometimes even bigger and brighter!

I think God is telling us that the same has to happen in our lives for us to bloom again and become even brighter and stronger!

Grief is not fun and not something that we want to sign up for! But it is a natural season of life, and if we allow God to take us through it, he will cut away the sorrow and the sadness and the pain and we will come out brighter and stronger than ever!

What does that look like for me right now?

I’m still learning and going through it, but I know for me it is leaning into God when the grief overwhelms me and I feel like I can’t pick my head up. He lifts my head up and he holds it in His two powerful, strong hands and whispers to me, “You are loved and you were so loved by your mom!”

I stand up, and I smile, remembering all the wonderful things that she did with me and my sisters and with her grandchildren! And I want to carry on that legacy!

So I have my grandkids over for sleepovers and we make Mickey and Minnie Mouse pancakes in the morning, we go to the pool and we go to the beach! We sing and we laugh and we play! We search for butterflies and lizards, and we walk the rocks at the beach and count how many starfish we can find! And as I sit on the shore, and I watch them jump in the waves, I realize that God is showing me the ebb and flow of life! As He cuts away the grief and sorrow I find the place where He’s called me to be today! He only asked me to trust him for today! To continue to shine his light like my mom did! And to sing “Jesus loves me this I know” with my grandchildren until one day he calls me home to Heaven and I will be with him and I will be with her again!

Cutting parts away from us, does not feel good in the moment! But as God continues to cut my grief away, I can feel my world getting brighter and stronger every single day!

TRUTH BOMB

GRIEF CUTS BOTH WAYS AS THE PAIN BRINGS HEALING.

“Sorrow may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5

We can trust God just like David did in knowing that our grief will be turned into joy as we allow God to take us through the process and cut away and prune what needs healing.

Speak Truth Love

I believe that God is telling me to write about grieving, and I don’t want to.

Yes, that’s right I’m the “cup half full girl, and when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade!” Yep, that’s me!

It’s not that I am not emotional, which anyone who knows me would put a big “AMEN” on that! It’s just that I would rather look at all the positives and let my life be dictated by those.

While this is truly naturally who I am, and who I believe God made me to be, grief is real and it remains somewhat of a mystery to me.

Knowing God‘s Truth, truly does set us free! And through the grief of losing my mom, God‘s Truth of knowing she is in heaven, and I will be reunited with her someday, has truly been the anchor that has rooted my soul and kept me moving forward!

But what about this tricky thing called GRIEF?

I know from a psychological and medical standpoint that grief is real! I also have read about all of the steps of grief and how you need to embrace it and go through it. Problem is, I am not just a mental and physical person. I am an emotional person that has chosen to ground myself in the TRUTH OF WHAT GOD SAYS TO ME!

I know that I could look up grief on any number of websites and give you a step-by-step healing process that is medically sound!

I also know I can speak the word grief into ChatGPT or any other search engine, and present you with an articulate plan for grieving.

But that’s just not the way I roll! God has given me an ear and a voice! He wants me to lean into Him and listen and speak His Truth in love. 

So that is what I’m attempting to do! To lean into him, to express my sorrow and confusion and grief to Him, to read His Word and to listen to His voice and share His Truth.

It may be only for me, but it may help you too, as you process your grief. 

I believe that one of the lessons that I am learning, is that we all process grief in our own way. It may help you to follow a clinical process, but what I know to be true, is that true healing can only come through the great physician, Jesus Christ! When we lean on him and our obedient to what he is calling us to do, we will find what the Bible calls, “Healing for our soul!”

Now I may run the risk of you writing me off or thinking I’ve gone a little bit crazy. But I know that God loves us so much that when we hurt, He hurts! And His greatest desire is for us to heal and be made whole again! So out of obedience to what I believe, God is calling me to do, I am going to write this series on my grieving process! You are not going to find it in any medical journal or in a psychology, textbook. But I do believe, if God is piercing my heart to share it, then He not only desires to bring healing to me, but healing to others as well!

Grieving part one:

Staring out the window!

My life is full and busy and it sometimes is pure crazy! But since December 3, the day my mom went to heaven, I find myself in still, quiet moments, just staring out the window. I can literally sit, uninterrupted, still, and quiet, just staring out the window until I’m interrupted!

I’m not crying, I’m not sobbing. I’m not depressed or sad, I’m just staring.

Actually, I’ve come to realize I’m not simply staring. I’m looking for something! I’m waiting for a bird to fly by. I’m waiting for the sun to rise over the top of of the Hills, or for the sun to set and go below the hills. I’m waiting for a sound of life! For a dog to bark, for a child to laugh or giggle, or for a bird to squawk. I’m looking for signs of HOPE!

Sometimes I will hear a child playing and laughing and talking to their mom, and a solid tear may roll down my cheek. But it’s not a tear of sadness, it’s a tear of Hope.

I have a picture in my house that frames the words, ”THE SUN WILL COME UP.”

Why would someone sell this piece of artwork and better yet, Why would someone put it up in their home?

One simple answer! HOPE!

We have no guarantee that the sun will actually rise tomorrow morning! But we do have Hope that because the world continues to function as God created it to the sun will indeed  “COME UP!”

When I stare out the window and look for evidence of life, I gain Hope in knowing that God is in control of our living and our dying! I am also encouraged as I gain a greater understanding of God‘s purpose for life continuing.

Truth Bomb

Grieving isn’t one size fits all, but with God there is always Hope!

Grief can sometimes feel overwhelming and get us stuck! It can drag us down and make us feel hopeless in living! But God reminds us as we look at the vast amount of sky he created, and listen to the birds singing while they sit on a tree limb, or watching the birds soar through the blueness of the sky, or listen to and hear a child’s gleeful giggling, that we were created to live until he calls us to our eternal home!

Speak Truth Love