Tweezer-picking shrapnel experience

THE LULU CHRONICLES

After a short blackout period, I’m back. I needed to be alone in the shadows for a while. I needed to wander through my house, touch base with my family, and wrestle with God about some things. Grief is an unpredictable journey and there’s nothing about it that I can count on. I can’t say I’ll be done with it in six months and start checking off the days. Monday may be a good day, but come Tuesday I might find myself knee-deep in an emotional mire of quick sand. All I can say about the grieving process is that I hope it will not leave me as it found me.

I have had some small victories though. The other morning after a night of falling snow, I put on my boots, my gloves and my fur hat and marched out to the garage.  On the first try, I was able to start the snow blower all by myself. The Hubs would have been proud.

Over the holidays, I drove almost two thousand miles by myself to visit family and friends. One, long, rainy, icy afternoon I drove up and down and around the curvy roads of the Ozarks. With my pup, Atticus, riding shotgun, I felt Gary’s large hand over the back of my seat reassuring me that I was doing just fine, thank you very much. Real or imagined, I can’t say.

I have spent several weeks now alone in our house. After three months I think I can honestly say there is nowhere else I’d rather be. This is where Gary and I lived our life. This house, this road, this town, this church family. We lived here together. Our home was a true shelter, a place to be loved and to love. Although Gary is now gone, I am happy to say, it still is. Just this weekend these rooms were filled with many tiny feet and little people whose giggles rose like bubbles from the basement on up. Papa was certainly missed, but in those sparkling small faces, he could still be found.

My heart hasn’t learned how to beat properly without Gary. The hole his absence has created may never, ever close all the way. The path I'm on is slippery and ever changing like a moving, gliding staircase. On any given day where I end up isn’t always where I thought I was going, but at least I’m moving.

God hasn’t exactly been cooperative, at least by my way of thinking. You''d think a Guy who in just six days could create an entire solar system from scratch along with the original prototypes of every living creature that ever was or ever will be, wouldn't have trouble mending a broken heart in under fifteen minutes.  During my blackout period I gave the Creator of the Universe the business a few times. Unfortunately, a clinched fist and a few sarcastic eye rolls didn’t persuade Him none. Apparently, we’re going to do this His way. I’m going to hurt until the hurting eventually stops. I’m going to cry until I don’t need to anymore. Loneliness will not kill me, even when I beg for it to. In the last couple of weeks I’ve finally come to terms with the truth that our Father is not a short-cut kind of God. The healing is in the slow tweezer-picking shrapnel experience. Not my will, but His. It’s always been His.

So, I get up every morning and wait on Him to show me how to do this. And every morning I wait and trust that He will come.

So far, He always has…