Most of you know by now my love and my deep need/desire for beach therapy. We had a spring break trip planned for a few weeks now and had been looking forward to it. I mean when I say look forward to it-I mean live for it. A few weeks ago life just got a little messed up, as life will do sometimes. All I can and will say is children make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes can mess life's flow up. Anyway, the beach trip was needed/desired even more. We just needed a little respite from life, the everyday, the disappointments, especially the time of year. Satan saw the need to intervene and mess things up a little more. As I was fighting an infection of my own Sam spiked a fever Saturday night on a family outing. I took him to the doctor on Sunday to see if we could nip such Satan sickness and carry on with beach plans. We left there knowing nothing, tested false for flu, was told to treat symptoms. We decided to delay departure for the beach. I figured I could take care of some things while we waited this virus from Satan out. Fever continued to climb, boy continued to deteriorate. Tuesday came with a plan to leave---Molls woke up with same symptoms, cough, cough turned to fever, and like clockwork Jake started coughing, fever spiked.
#currentsituation 3 kids down!
#currentsituation 3 kids down!
The decision was made that this trip wasn't going to happen. Thankfully it was offered to us so no hidden fees etc. Still!!!! Disappointed is not even the word I could describe as a feeling. All this mama wanted, needed, desired, was a short trip to relax, reflect, and enjoy my 3. School, work, life has a way of stealing time away from precious family moments. It was going to be a time to reconnect, restore and have some conversations that we needed to have. It was going to be a time to escape Holy Week and what memories are stirred up and brought up of Holy Week 6 years ago. For a few years now we've done just that...escaped TO THE BEACH.
Here's part of a text I sent to J concerning this week as he wanted to help..."sad to say but we are in the midst of all the memories right now. Think it's been kinda cruel that we've been made to stay inside as we were then. Mom bringing food, people checking in for different reason but checking in. Just the overall gloom and doom of sickness looming-even if it is just the flu this time, keeping up with a medicine log. Being bone tired from emotion. Just a walk to the mailbox as an escape today, as I did then,was hard. Not as tough as it was then or even 3 years ago-but it's still there. Not that I miss him as I use to, but the memories of his struggle, coinciding with Good Friday, Easter weekend. And then we get to live it again on the April 3rd. Just lots going on in our lives today that bring up lots of stuff as then."
I went on to thank him for wanting to help even when he doesn't understand grief himself and how it's heavy one minute and light the next. He explained he thought he may never know how to help. He's close to us, how can I expect people that don't know us as well to even come close to understanding. Maybe that's why so many have let us down by not 'being there.' Maybe it because they just don't know how. I had the opportunity to explain to someone how 6 years may seem a long time but to my 3,most days, it seems like yesterday. It's always there. They've learned to cope with the loss, but mostly the absence. They've learned to live and be raised by a single mom, which has been put into question lately by those that don't know us at all. They've learned to cope as best they know how, one by pushing feelings way down and finding ways to escape. One by being more determined, more motivated, but not really dealing and one that clings to her mom because I'm all she's really known or had. These ways of coping aren't perfect, but it's the way they've gotten up each day, put one foot in front of the other and carried on. Carrying on is all I can ask of them. There will be mistakes, there will be trials, there will be constant let downs by people that are suppose to care for us. I will let them down. So I'm using this season, this time, down to this week to show them that our trust is in God and Him alone, man will always let you down. Satan will always try and steal your joy. Circumstances will change and disappointments will happen (ummm axed beach trips.) Sickness' will occur, sometimes flu sometimes something more serious to botch things up. People will come and go in and out of our lives, but one thing remains...Jesus and His love and goodness for us.
While talking about how disappointed we all were to not get to go to the beach Sam speaks up and says maybe God was just protecting us from a really bad wreck, bad storm or something. He then reminded me that circumstances that swirl around us may just be a God thing as well. Gods revealing and God is guiding. God is good all the time and all the time God is good. Even during spring breaks up to our knees in flu, even when people have let you down, even during the weeks of heavy grief, even in the everyday.
He shows up and he reveals his goodness-through a friend that drops off a candle that smells like the beach because she's just been thinking of me for 2 weeks,he shows up through text from various friends and family. He shows up through a neighbor in her new car as I walk to my mailbox and through her own experiences encourages the pants off of me--while I stand in the street. He shows up in my kids daily, despite what others may think and say. He covers us with unending grace and unending mercy, even the days I'm mad at Him for my botched beach trip;) He shows up in a tree that blooms on a deaths anniversary every year to remind me of renewal, restoration and beauty, even from death.
He shows up in a man that prays for me, that shares his laughter with me and wants to help in the yuck of life.
You see my 3 -even out of death, disappointments, mistakes, botched spring breaks, flu, cancer- you can find HIM. You can find the one that spoke "DeAnn, Jake, Sam, Molly" as they placed him on the cross. You need only Be Still, and it doesn't even have to be on the beach:)
Happy Holy Week. Take a moment to reflect that He whispered your name as well. The alarm is about to go off so I can administer meds to my crew to get us through the night. One fevered foot in front of the other. Carry on.
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