As I am writing this my heart is heavy, today I will be attending a funeral, a life celebration for a second cousin of mine. He is my mom’s first cousin and they had a lot in common. Family was precious to both of them, they loved to laugh and reminisce whenever they were together. They both came from families with lots of love, history and traditions. Today, also marks four years since my mother passed away, I still think of her everyday and I miss her and I’m ok with all of it. Grief has found a place to rest in my soul. I was talking to a friend today, describing how my thoughts of heaven have changed through the years…I believe it’s an evolving idea. As a kid, I heard about streets made of gold, mansions, praising and singing, harps playing and big white fluffy clouds. As I have grown and experienced life and studied the bible I think maybe, all the things I mentioned are true and more…my hope is that God and the spirits/souls of family members met my cousin and my mom as they entered into God’s Kingdom. I’m comforted by knowing that I was raised in a Christian home with the promise of everlasting life with our Creator. I hope these words below and the songs give you peace and comfort.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

~C. S. Lewis

Family, the fragile state of life.
The tests and trials before us
Years come and go, family ties bind
Sickness and sadness reminds us
Busy lives, racing to and fro
Thinking tomorrow time will slow
Tomorrows stay elusive out of reach
We gather at weddings, wishing
We gather at funerals, remembering
Often asking why and where
God may seem elusive but He’s not
God is always with us
We only notice when we need Him
Celebrate the daily things
Thank God daily for His presence
Take time for Family in-the-in-between
Weddings will be happier
Funerals will be less sad
Family ties that bind, strengthened
The grace of God never-ending.

~April 3, 2011
4:44pm

The Day

The day I never wanted to come
That day has come and gone
The imagined loss and emptiness
Those feelings have settled in
A void that cannot be filled
How does one grieve such a loss
Not with time, family or friends
Such a loss with open wounds
Wounds that are felt more than seen
Pain that blocks all healing
Mourning that feels no relief
Just one more hug or embrace
One more I love you
No one can ease the pains of life
Nothing like a mothers love
Mom, I miss you
I miss you everyday.

~July 28, 2012
10:26pm
Mom…
I took for granted that you would always be there for me, how selfish that was but here I am wishing you were here with me. I’m sitting here thinking of all the missed opportunities I had and let slip away because I thought…there’s always next week or tomorrow now there’s no more tomorrow’s or next week. I miss you so much it literally makes me weak and ill. Thinking of all the things we wanted to do and now they will never be realized because you’re gone. You were the strongest person I knew, the most giving person I knew and you were loved by so many, even by the ones who didn’t like you they loved the person you were. I like to think of you in place where you can still see me and watching over me. I also hope you’re at rest and surrounded by loved ones and you have peace. If I close me eyes I can still feel the embrace of our final hug and kiss goodbye ….that day will always be…no, it does feel like its happening right in this very moment. It’s true what they say…When you need me but do not want me, then I must stay. When you want me but no longer need me, then I have to go. Mom, I miss you so very, very much!
I will forever be your loving daughter.

~January 08, 2013
8:08pm

~Blessings and Peace~
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” ~John 14:27

Once a month I travel back to a place and time, that is recent yet so long ago. In this place, I see remnants of what used to be…the good and the not-so-good, the honest and the not-so-honest, with relations divided by race, gender, and religion. The thing is, back in this place where progress seems to move slower than time, I see goodness, I see God…He’s in the grass, He’s in the trees, and He’s in the people. There’s bond between neighbors and family, people are connected and their lives are intertwined in ways that I have only experienced in that time and that space. These pockets of time and space are most likely not limited to just my personal experiences; however, they do seem to be rare. Each month as the time approaches when I journey back once again, it is met with some hesitation as I force myself to return to places of great sorrow and of complicated growing pains. My journey takes me back to emotions of my youth feeling awkward as a teenager and often never really feeling like I fit in. I don’t think that God orchestrated a series of bad or unpleasant circumstances to happen in my life for pain or strife; its was for my growth and preparation of things to come. God has blessed me with many opportunities for me to experience great joy and enormous pain, pain at a depth I surely thought would at times consume me. There are secret pains that drift in and out like a summer’s early morning dew. These things remain hidden, draped in misguided shame and guilt. There are times traveling back to where these secrets and scars were formed, all I want to do is retreat back to the life, I now live. Even amid the shadows of my life experiences, I feel freer today than I have ever in my entire life. I am not sure of how or when or if I will ever make complete sense of the experiences of my youth and my life thus far. What I do know for sure is that if this is the road that I must journey that God has set before me, then I pray for His constant companionship and for the comfort of His spirit, as I persevere. So many people in this world suffer daily because of secrets, because of bullying, and because of shame. These behaviors remain prevalent today because of fear! People are afraid to trust and let someone in, there is almost always a price for sharing ones stories. For anyone who has ever been sworn to secrecy, I can honestly say, it’s a very lonely place to be and an outrageous and unfair responsibility. These exploiters of trust, they demand secrecy and do so by building false securities with individuals that are trusting and perhaps even naive, who easily believe in the goodness of others and who are quick to easily trust people as they appear. They actively seem to be interested in us as people and potential friends…SNAP! “Hook, Line and Sinker!” So many of us fall for the false pretense of friendship and we find ourselves stuck right in the middle of a “secret.” A falsehood. “Hoodwinked!” To this day, if I were to meet one of my ” so-called “friends (exploiters)” I am not sure how or even if I would confront them. Partly due to the misguided information and self-imposed guilt and shame, this reluctance has more to do with me, the person I have become and recognizing that holding a grudge only keeps me from joy and me from living. God has done so much for me and I know in my heart to put my trust in Him, knowing He only wants goodness for me. I admit, this is at times difficult, always true but difficult nonetheless. There are so many who suffer in silence everyday, these individuals are afraid to open the slightest crack into their lives and let someone in because it would mean that someone else might learn of their secrets, their faults, their insecurities, their fears…you see that’s the thing about secrets, the harder we try to contain it, the stronger the hold it has on our lives. People who place demands upon relationships that require secrecy are rarely done for our protection but for theirs. Those demands are not based upon shared trust, they are created from a place of power and control. These people live by a different standard with different rules they are what black holes are to space, they pretend to love us, they pretend to be our friends and in the end we are merely a means to their end. God has given me a perspective that for many years either I ignored or was too scared to trust God but I can see now the crossroad, this crossroad to continue living in darkness, shame and misguided truths or turning towards God where the path may not always be as smooth as I would like; however, it will always be truthful and filled with light. These roads are often filled with boulders, stones, pebbles and ruts, all designed to mold us into in the spiritual beings God created us to be. Crossroads are decisions, pivotal moments in our lives. We look in one direction and see…wow this is going to be a luxurious trip, I can walk, I can skip, I can run, I can rest and or just relax because it’s beauty filled with sunny, green grass and a babbling brook. Got the visual? Okay, now to view the other option, you know the rocks, pebbles and ruts…hardships. God tells us upfront, it won’t be easy but you will never be alone, NOT ever. We are reminded by scripture that we are not meant to remain on this earth forever, we are destined for a new heaven and a new earth where we will be in constant jubilation with all the saints and believers. To some this may sound very much like a fairytale and maybe that’s why most of us connect with fairy tales, with their happily ever after’s. After all, that’s precisely what God wants for us, He wants to not merely give us happily ever after, He wants to BE our happily ever after, forever!

References:
“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” ~C.S.Lewis

Luke 8:17 “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.”

Revelation 21:1-4 “Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

John 8:12
“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Matthew 7:13-14
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

John 16:33                                                 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Vulcan Salute, “Live long and prosper.” followed with “Peace and long life.”