In remembering and celebrating my past anniversary’s I’d always write about the goodness of God. Tomorrow’s anniversary is no different. God is still good.
Please don’t misunderstand me for a second, I am very sad. I miss my husband constantly. When good things, bad things, funny things happen, he’s who I want to talk to. None of that magically goes away. BUT GOD… regardless of my sadness HE is good. His grace is new every single morning, and I am able to function because of HIM. 100% because of HIM.
Am I doing everything right? NOPE!
Do I know what I’m doing? equally, NOPE!
But you know what? My intense sadness in NO FREAKING WAY takes the joy I have in knowing Christ away, it also, doesn’t diminish the gratitude I have to God for the gifts HE lavishes on me and my children daily. One emotion does not nullify another.
It’s the strangest feeling too. I can both be sad and feel joy. My joy of who has me, who is sustaining me, who loves me, who has forgiven me, who makes a way for me… is coexisting with the deepest level of sadness I have ever felt in my life.
I love words… and I am unable to accurately detail for you what this feels like. This polarity, these extremes … coexisting in a human’s flawed heart. I am filled with joy over my good and beautiful Jesus, and I am sad that I do not have Chris by my side anymore.
I think wanting us to exist in vacuums is not realistic. I don’t have to be only sad, or only joy-filled. And.. for us to conceptualize the complexity of human emotions in such a simplistic way doesn’t seem accurate.
I don’t believe this makes me double-minded because I have a singular emotion regarding the death of my husband: sadness. Yet, regarding my husband I feel differently, I feel joy in having known him, gratitude for having met him, and love… above all I feel love. I’ve been LOVED, and I will forever feel love for him. Always.
Just because I remember our wedding anniversary tomorrow does not mean that I won’t feel both the pangs of sadness, and the warmth of love. Simultaneously.
I choose to write about my journey through grief because YES it does help me, but also, so you all know… “Till death do you part” one of you is going to go first. It was the deal we all made when we married our person. I promise you it will be one of the worst pains you’ll endure, especially if like me, you have a good one. BUT… I cannot imagine enduring this without Jesus. I can’t.
I am blessed enough to walk in these 2 complex emotions: sadness and joy. What if I didn’t have the joy? What if all I had was the sadness?
That, I couldn’t bear. And that… on the eve of my 5th wedding anniversary is what I pray for you all as you read this, that you know Jesus well enough to walk in complexity. Walking in joy and in sadness, in joy and in righteous anger, in joy and in physical pain, in joy and in grief, in joy and while struggling to break the chains of guilt and shame.
I couldn’t survive this without my faith.
So tomorrow I will cry and I’ll probably laugh too… my kids are pretty funny. I’ll think of my husband, I’ll remember our AWESOME wedding (if I do say so myself) and I’ll thank God for everything, all the while, missing my person and wishing I could hold his hand.