The Week Begins

We just got home from church about an hour ago. Mike with me. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to stay. It is so difficult going to that seat and sitting there and Jerry isn't there next to me. So often he'd fall asleep sitting there and I'd be so embarrassed. I'd poke him. I just couldn't understand why he couldn't stay awake at times.

Tonight, I thought, I give anything in the world to be embarrassed if it meant he would be there next to me. And I'd give anything if the all the good memories would flood me as easily as the bad ones do. I have 35 years of memories and most were good ones. Yet, the last three years of our life together have been fraught with his pain and suffering and my frustrations and anger and those are the things that haunt me. The only ghosts in my house are of my own making.

A dear older lady in our church who lost her husband probably five or six years ago came over and spoke to me and said how glad she was to see me there. I just crumpled and said, "I don't think I can stay." She knelt beside me and said, "Oh yes you can." She talked with me a long time about her own experience when she lost her husband and she prayed for me.

I do have a good church. Several ladies came and prayed for me a bit later and of course, I believe in prayer. And I know there is no quick fix. Grief is like exercise. It only gets easier with time. God doesn't heal grief, he comforts. This morning while I sat in the morning service my Bible fell open to a passage I had, at some time in the past, marked in red. I do not recall when or why I marked it. I only mark passages that have special meanings or importance to me. Anyway, here is it.

Lamentations 3:22-26 & 31-33

²²It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
²³They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
²⁴The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
²⁵The LORD is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.
²⁶It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.

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³¹For the LORD will not cast off for ever:
³²But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies.
³³For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.