Celebrations and Tears
The next few days are filled with celebrating the 11th birthday of my youngest child, the 22nd birthday of my oldest and the 81st of my Father.
The first part of this week was spent visiting with my in-laws. For years it was Ron and Susan and "the girls". Then our home was filled with "the boys". Because of my girls' schedules, this family trip was the first of many I'm sure, that just included our boys.
It was a special time for them as their Granddad and father took them around town and showed them houses lived in, streets played on, and ended with grave sites of those gone before. As I stood around the graves of people whose lives meant so much to so many... life felt so important and unimportant at the same time.
Weeks like this seem to portray the theme of my life....
Celebrating the oldest and the youngest...
Loud and quiet...
Creative and simple...
People person and loner...
Laughter and tears...
Feasting and famine...
Love and hate...
Grace and judgement...
Healing and pain...
Support and aloneness...
Successes and disappointments...
Whole and broken.
___________________
Life is hard. The life of a Christian is hard.
We just celebrated Easter last week... what a great example of
pain, sacrifice, death and victory all wrapped up together for us to remember and celebrate.
My kids got to hear their grandmother play the piano at the assisted living home that she now lives at because of the disease that has attacked her mind. As I watched her play with perfection the songs she had spent years playing in church for others, I wondered why...
I cried as we drove away that day.
I cried that she doesn't know my husband was her baby boy.
I cried that she isn't able to enjoy the grandchildren that she helped me take care of as infants coming home from the hospital.
I cried because her husband is home alone after 54 years of marriage.
I cried because life is hard.
I cried for myself and decisions I am facing that don't seem fair.
I'm trying to see life through eternal eyes and determine those things that are worth fighting for and those that aren't.
I don't have time to spend on things that seem important in this life, but in the end when people are standing around my grave really aren't.
Sorry if this is a downer to you... of course as we tend to do, the only pics to post are of the smiles, not the tears.
So be assured my friend lest you think you're the only one standing in life caught between the two extremes...
"Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning". Psalms 30:5
