Day 115

This morning I woke up at 5:00 a.m. in Kearney, Nebraska and drove for seven hours to my home in Colorado Springs.  This followed ten hours of driving from the previous day, which was preceded by my grandpa’s funeral and graveside service mere hours before.  The day before that, Monday, was the visitation.  On Saturday, my family and I started at 4:00 in the morning and drove for eighteen hours to my grandpa’s bedside and said our last goodbyes, only about nine hours before he passed away on Sunday morning.   The preceding week was a stressful day by day, hour by hour existence waiting for the phone call that never came that my Grandpa had passed on from this life and was now with Jesus. 

It’s been a hard week and a half.

Emotionally, I’m doing pretty well.  Physically, I’m worn out. 

Grief affects everyone differently, and it shows up unexpectedly.  For me, I did most of my grieving for my grandpa before he passed away.  It took me a couple of days to work through it, and then for the most part I was alright. I still cry sometimes, but my soul is at peace for my grandpa.  The grief that remains is for the people that remain, because I can’t feel sad for my grandpa.  I know he is with Jesus and is experiencing the greatest, happiest, most wonderful existence any creature can have.  He was a faithful follower of Jesus in this life, and he is receiving his reward for his faithfulness.   But for the rest of us, we have to wait for that.  We said goodbye, and we know it’s not forever, but it is long enough to be hard.  We who remain have to live the rest of our time on earth without the man who was a faithful husband, a loving father, a proud grandpa, and a tender great-grandpa.  We mourn because our lives are poorer without the man who made them richer. 

After living in a vacuum for the last two weeks, where everything I did or planned depended on what was happening with my grandpa, it is a little hard to jump back into regular life. Dinner needs to made.  Cars need to be filled up with gas.  I have a job I need to go to.   I can put stuff on the calendar again.  When someone you love dies, you want life to stop for a while to give you time to adjust.  But it doesn’t.  Life continues to spin at a dizzying pace, and just like a merry-go-round, you just have to jump in and hang on. Although it’s hard at the beginning, I think it’s better this way.  If you spend too much time wrapped in your sorrow and loss, it’s easy to become very self-focused and it just becomes harder for you to get back to the new normal.   We all eventually have to learn how to live again. 

I loved my grandpa and I will miss him very much.  But when the day comes that God calls me home, that day will be the beginning of the time where there will be no more sorrow, nor tears, nor death nor pain, because Christ has conquered those things for those who love him.  I live today in the hope that one day there will be no more goodbyes.  All that will be left is an eternity of todays with the ones that I love in the presence of the One who loved us first.

Dedicated to my Grandpa, Al Peterson (1921-2012)

Day 114

Wow.  The last two weeks have been a roller coaster to say the least. I read a saying that described it accurately: "I try to live one day at a time, but sometimes several days happen all at once."  Life has been full and tiring.  I worked some crazy hours last week at the florist for Mother's Day, we bought a car, the Ignite Retreat was last weekend, and in the midst of it all my family found out that my grandfather has been put on hospice care and will soon be with Jesus, which means that I am back on puppy duty while my mom is away.

I want to share about the retreat, but not now.  I think I need a few more days to process everything.  All I will say is that it was the topic was something I needed to hear and apply to my life.

There has been so much going on and yet I don't know what to say.  It's hard waiting for someone you love to die.  It's easier that we've known that it has been coming for a long time, but it is still not easy. My grandpa was a faithful follower of Christ and a great example to his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  He is deeply loved, and will be greatly missed.

I'm tired, but I'm at peace. God is in control, and even though so many things are up in the air right now, I know that it's going to be alright.  I'm taking it one day at a time.

May you find joy in peace.

Day 113

I had a job interview today.  In times like this, it is always nice when God gives you a clear direction, a one door open and another door closed type of thing.  God gave me a clear direction: the door was strongly, firmly, and rapidly shut.

The interview was going well for the first four minutes.  I felt fairly comfortable and confident while going through work history and what-not.  And then came the question:  Are you available to work on Sundays?  This surprised me, mainly because this company is not opened on Sundays, and that was one of the reason I was excited about this job.  My answer: I don't like to, but I will work Sunday afternoons and evenings if I have to.  It turns out that this company is moving towards being open seven days a week, and that change will probably happen within the next year.  They need someone with availability starting at 10:00am on Sundays.  That person is not me.  Going to church is a huge priority in my life, and I will not change that priority for my job.  After that, the interview was basically over.  I was in and out of there in ten minutes.

Was it disappointing?  Yes it was.  Was it nice to know immediately that this wasn't going anywhere?  Yes it was.  My prayer throughout this whole thing was that God would be glorified in my life no matter the outcome, and I will continue to pray for that.  May God grant my prayer.

May you find joy even when the door is closed.

Day 112

If you have never had the opportunity to drink one of my husband's cappuccinos, than you, my friend, are missing out.  They are absolutely delicious.  Imagine strong espresso mixed with steamed milk and topped with a cloud of foam and drizzled with just the right amount of chocolate, my husband's modus operandi, and what you have is a little taste of heaven.  Ahhh, so good.

Last night we went to go see a movie and got home after 9:00pm.  We were both tired, but I had gotten a great deal on pastry turnovers and wanted to eat them.  My husband suggested cappuccinos, which of course I agreed with, but in the back of my mind was thought of drinking espresso that late and wanting to go to sleep at a reasonable time.  Then my husband had a flash of genius: mini cappuccinos!  We were given a set of espresso mugs from Thailand, which are really small, and he made our cappuccinos in those.  They always say that things taste better in miniature form, and I'm inclined to believe them.  We ate our turnover and drank our mini cappuccinos and then went to bed happy people.

May you find joy in life.