Here I am Again.....

Here I am again.

I'm at that place, that same place I keep coming to.

I feel so lost.

There is numbness.... it's cracking, it's breaking, it's giving way.

Here is pain which words cannot express.

I'm here tonight, down on my knees, on the floor.

I'm scrubbing the floor, washing it literally with my tears.

That pain won't go away because she won't....can't.... come back.

It hits me.....this is the bottom.....this is down.....this is what there is.

This is what is left....

the emptiness she leaves behind.

Jesus met me here, down on my knees.

Not in prayer, far away from prayer.

Not anywhere, just here.

He met me here, right here on the floor.

He washed my heart with my tears.

He met me here. 

He met me at the bottom.


  We received a cd from Steven Curtis Chapman while Karagen was sick.  I have never listened to it, it was still wrapped in plastic, just waiting.  After putting the kids to bed, I found that cd, and put it in.  The whole cd is basically a grief journey- Beauty Will Rise.  He made it after his daughter died suddenly in a tragic car accident.  I just read his wife's book Choosing to See which they also sent to me.  MaryBeth wrote the book after their daughter passed away.  I never had a chance to read it or listen to the cd but they have been a tremendous help to me.  Tonight as I was listening to this cd, song after song expressed my feelings and my thoughts.  It was....I can't find the exact words.  It was amazing, it was necessary, it was beneficial, it was a God Thing, it was for me.
   
     We are facing our first Easter without her.  It has been so hard.  No pretty dress or shoes to buy, even though they all called her name.  There is no Karagen to fill her place in our hearts.  This time last year (not date wise, but holiday wise) I was in the hospital with her, she had emergency surgery on Good Friday and we were reeling from the news she had aggressive, extensive brain cancer and she might not live.  On Easter morning she and I were in the hospital, she could hardly move, was doped up on morphine, and looked so tiny and pail.  We were there together, she was there.  I sat beside her hospital bed watching her while she slept.  I paced to the window, wondering what the future held, dreading what it promised.  I felt trapped, as so often I do now.  Trapped in the moment, in the uncertainty.

Every single time, at some point, in some way.....

He always came.

And.....

Because He LIVES.....

I can face tomorrow.

Because He LIVES.

Click here to listen to the song that touched me so deeply-Jesus Will Meet You There

Favorite Christmas Card

 

Christmas Day was actually easy.  I wasn't surprised.  But the day after....when everyone went home and the hustle and bustle was gone and the quiet seeped in....that's when it was hard. 

 

Why didn't they call us?

 

Why didn't they come here?

 

Why did this have to happen?

 

The battle against anger and bitterness.

 

The bad dream that will not end, the truth that continues to sting, the child that will be forever missed.

 

The comfort of Jesus who reaches us....and fills our every longing.

 

God WITH us.

 

This is the promise we cling to, this is the promise of Christmas!