(picture aboveborrowed from The Darting Sparrow blog)
Sixteen months ago already.....it seems like just a blink
ago. In the hustle and bustle of getting 3 beauties ready to go off to college and
starting my next step in the journey into this new world God has planned out for me, I haven't really had
time nor taken the time to truly mourn. Today I woke up and just shook my head in
bewilderment that it's been 16 months....I've been living in a fog. I think I was just
doing what it took to get by. But now I have a lot of quiet time...time to reflect and reminisce and miss him, and mourn what never will be. I know the girls are hurting and are missing their daddy and I just have done what I needed to do to keep things as normal for them as I could so that at least something in their lives was constant.
But now as I sit here alone each day, I wrestle with the agony of knowing that there are things that need to change. The house being the biggest thing. It's too much to take care of, it costs too much to take care of, it's too big to be alone in. Now those that know me, know that I have plenty of stuff to keep this big house full and cluttered, but it's not full of the things that matter. I'm talking to fish, people!! This can't be healthy.
I have started the interviewing process after using the summer to research and rehearse and revise my resume, my life on paper. I have had 2 face-to-face interviews so far and praying that I hear good news. I'm ready to have a routine, whatever is going to be my new normal. Bring it on!!
I've heard it said the second year is the hardest.......You supposedly come out of this fog and BAM...it really is true and it still stinks. It's always going to stink. I think I'm to the mad part. And though "I know HE watches me", I'm just still mad. I love you Lord, but I am JUST MAD!! and sad....
I thank God for my friends and my community...you have been here for the girls and I, and continue to do so. I love when so many of you see things with birds on them, or something lemony, it reminds you of me or the girls and I hope you pray for us when that happens....sometimes I'm just too mad to pray....
But deepest down I know that God loves me and has a plan for me...of course it's not my plan. Not quite sure how His plan is better than mine was, but I'm ready for the big reveal. Can't imagine I will go "OH! I get it". How can a plan without my sweet guy in it to share my days ahead be better?....but I will trust...and wait....and try not to be so mad...
You know my family is deeply moved and defined by music. So many times God gives us a song at just the right time...for a moment, or a day, or longer. I was introduced to the songs by a singer named Audrey Assad by my dear friend Brian. I am in love with her music and her voice and of course how I first noticed her music was when I saw a song in the playlist called "Sparrow". Of course I had to listen to it. Click on this link to listen...
The history of the song "His Eye is on the Sparrow" as written on the blog The Darting Sparrow:
A woman named Civilla Martin wrote the lyrics to this hymn. Here is the story behind it, in her own words:
Early in the spring of 1905, my husband and I were sojourning in Elmira, New York. We contracted a deep friendship for a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle, true saints of God.
Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nigh twenty years. Her husband was an incurable cripple who had to propel himself to and from his business in a wheel chair. Despite their afflictions, they lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration and comfort to all who knew them.
One day while we were visiting with the Doolittles, my husband commented on their bright hopefulness and asked them for the secret of it. Mrs. Doolittle's reply was simple: "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me."
The beauty of this simple expression of boundless faith gripped the hearts and fired the imagination of Dr. Martin and me. The hymn "His Eye is on the Sparrow" was the outcome of that experience....
The next day, Civilla mailed the poem to Charles Gabriel, who supplied the music;
One line in the 2nd verse of the traditional song is one I never noticed until now but is so fitting for how I feel especially these days...
"Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;"
I only see one step at a time...but I know He leadeth me...and He watches me....I will trust this...
