I usually know exactly what I’m going to write about by the time I sit down to do it, but this week I’m at a loss. There won’t be one theme today, but a lot of mini themes.
How am I really doing?
Is the strength you see in my blog posts real? Am I not telling the whole truth? Most of the time I actually do feel strong and I’ve given you pretty good details about the days when I wasn’t. I am sure that my strength comes from God, mostly working through humans, but sometimes a bird! As I have drawn closer to Him over the past six or seven years especially, I am aware of Him in my life. At the moment I was told she had passed, He had special people set aside who know Him, by my side, holding me through the shock and breakdown. He had friends old and new step in and get our family through the darkest moments, while other family members supported us continuously from afar. I knew God was in the details when on Christmas morning at exactly 8:32 am, 48 hours after they called her death, I got the below text from Rock 4.
When I felt the need to work through my grief by writing this substack, He arranged for enough people to be interested and encouraging to keep me writing it. Thank you to all of you for walking with me through this. It actually does get easier as more and more time elapses. My hope is that it helps others. God knows who needs to see this and they’ll get here when it happens.
On my birthday, January 21st, why did I decide to go through her things? What crazy person wants to make themselves feel worse? (the strangely practical kind). But I found the birthday candle!
I knew God was still by my side when I had a severe breakdown on March 10th and after I asked two of my prayer warrior friends to pray for me, not an hour later He sent me the only old friend I have who would 100 percent know what I was going through because she had tragically lost her youngest daughter at the same age.
Just last week, the Blue Heron was a sign to me that God is still continuously walking with me through all of it. Thanks be to God!
Lonely People, Self-absorbed people, or I’m making too much of it?
As I mentioned about my Biloxi trip, I did a lot of walking from the Ocean Springs side of a bridge back to our place, right around five miles, a few times. The last time was the last day, very early morning, and I decided I was going to keep track of the people who acknowledged that there was a person within “greeting distance” of them. I mentioned that I always try to make eye contact and smile, nod, say hi, or something to any human in my “greeting distance” which I guess is about 5-10 feet. The first two thirds of the people were exercising themselves going in the opposite direction of me either walking or jogging. The final third were after the bridge on the street and in a small convenience store I stopped in to break a bill into smaller denominations by buying a soft drink. Well, the grand total was 13 out of 19 people acknowledged my existence. Three of them were somewhat reluctant, but I’d made eye contact and so had they, so they had no choice after I said, “hi.” What do I make of the ones who are so self-absorbed they don’t see another human being? Or are they feeling bad and just don’t want any human interaction? I must say that in my experience, even here in Huntsville, I almost always find that those in the lower economic statuses are much more friendly than those in upper economic statuses. What are your thoughts?
New Songs
Two new songs I’d never heard until this week. As a Lauren Daigle fan, I heard her new song, “Thank God I Do” and I really relate to it.
I also heard one by TobyMac I’d never heard before and without even researching, I know it has to be about his life after the death of his young adult son a few years ago. I’m female of course, but I relate to it, too. Reading the comments under the YouTube video, the song inspires a lot of people for whatever struggles they are facing.
Celebration of Life
I feel like I’m not going to feel a lot of grief for these next couple of weeks, until the speakers and especially the songs at Morgan’s Celebration of Life. I’m focused on getting it to work well. I know it won’t be perfect, but again, I’m reaching out for help and people are responding in such a positive way. I’m very much looking forward to seeing old friends and distant relatives. I’m looking forward to introducing my friends here to these people. This is not going to be sadness and doom and gloom. We are going to CELEBRATE MORGAN’S WELL-LIVED LIFE here and in the EVERAFTER!