We will always have a hole....but will we always be incomplete?

 

 

Our holidays will never be the same.  Our family will always have a hole; the absence of someone that made our family complete.  This is a hard fact to swallow, but it is not a fact that has to keep us feeling incomplete forever.  This is what scripture tells me.

People with their minds set on you, you keep completely whole, steady on their feet, because they keep at it and don’t quit.  Isaiah 26:3 

So I guess, if I believe scripture (which anyone who knows me knows this to be true), then I CAN be completely whole again; but only through keeping my mind set on God.   This will take practice and a deliberate choice because right now my mind naturally wants to set on the loss of Ryan.   Grief is such a process.  I must work through the loss by feeling it; but at the same time, in order to move forward to find that healing I so desire I must set my mind completely on God so that my hole can be filled and I can feel that completeness.  Perhaps when people identify someone as being “stuck” in their grief it is those that choose to keep their mind on that which caused the hole and do not make the choice of choosing to fill their minds with the thing that will bring healing.  To some, moving on might feel like abandoning that which was “lost”.  In my heart I don’t think this is true.  If I can come to a place where the memory of Ryan brings a smile and a warming to my heart and not a painful searing pain, my mourning has truly turned to dancing.  This is where I want to be and this is where I know Ryan would want me to live.

You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy...Psalm 30:11

 

As I step into these holidays I am purposing to “set my mind wholly on God”. These first holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, are tough.  I’m not going to lie.  At Thanksgiving we filled our home with laughter and people and activity and food and we seemed to enjoy the holiday; but, at the end of it our hearts were still broken; we still felt the loss.  We basically prolonged the inevitable pain by filling our days.  I think this is o.k.  We did what we needed to do to get through the holiday and experience laughter and joy on days that could have been filled with sadness; but, when the anesthesia of the holiday wore off we allowed “His fragrant oil to pour into our deep wounds” (great wording from Frances J Roberts)  without everyone around.  It seemed like this was a healthy way to get through our first holiday. 

Christmas is arriving and we are already feeling the impact of being incomplete; this is a journey, it takes daily choices.  We are working through how we will navigate through the holiday with our loss.  So far, we have chosen to continue to move through it with the many things we have always done; allowing it to look a little different and to stop when we just don’t have it in us to finish.  We have also purposed to be less busy than normal to allow for those gripping moments that come without warning.  We are so grateful that we will be able to spend Christmas with family members that will give us the freedom to laugh, cry, participate or not participate, and be alone or with the group.  These are requirements for our healing and for practicing how to allow God to continually fill our hole over and over again.   

The holidays are a time when the emotional holes in people’s lives are felt more profoundly; perhaps it is because the spirit of joy and fun and the celebration of family are at the core of holidays.  It is hard to watch those that “appear” complete when one feels incomplete.  The longing for completeness runs deep, reaching into the very core of our being.  When one experiences loss, injury, abandonment, abuse or neglect and a hole has been created, there is a longing to have it filled and not experience the pain that comes with the hole.  But what I am learning is this pain, this hole that I am living with, is drawing me closer to the shores of His love.  In the center of my grief I am finding His love and comfort and the knowledge that only HE can ever make me feel complete.  Even if my life appeared perfect, I am still incomplete without Him.

 Recently, on a particularly rough day I found myself crying out to the Lord to fill my hole that He created.    My cry was, “You created this hole now fill it with your healing balm like you say you will!”  I laid there and just let His love engulf me and His healing balm fill my wound.

Under every burden, God will slip His hand — Every gulf of sorrow, His great love has spanned.  Into every heartache, God will pour His balm; Ease the pain and anguish, bring a blessed calm. (Unknown)

We are moving into the season where we specifically celebrate God sending His Son down on earth to become that active, healing balm in our lives.  What a perfect time to really focus on accepting that balm and celebrating the impact He can have on my life IF I CHOOSE!