Sweet Mason, a whole decade without you is a very long time indeed.
This morning I opened my journal to write my Saturday thankful list and instead of thinking over the last week like I usually do, my thoughts were taken back over the last 10 years. Ten years ago this morning we said goodbye to this precious little boy and every day since has been a journey toward heaven with much more awareness, pain, and intentionality than I ever would have imagined for my life.
So I made my list. A list that spanned a decade.
So many things… The paramedics who transported us in ambulances and stood outside Mason’s hospital room until the end, wiping tears from their eyes. Modern medicine and amazing doctors and nurses who fought so hard for my boy. The family and friends who put their lives on hold to grieve with us. The sacrifices of others in order to ease a little pain in our world. Truly, the kindness of the Lord in the big and the small extends so wide. The depth of his goodness to my family is impossible to measure.
Believe me, there are plenty of things I’m not thankful for. Like the overwhelming dread pressing me down as we drove home from the hospital knowing I was going to walk into my home and shatter the blissful innocence of childhood. The sound of my children’s cries when they grasped the horrific reality that their brother, their spunky playmate and built in best friend, would never come home again.
I don’t look back with any fondness whatsoever at sitting under that awning at the cemetery, staring a casket that should never have to be so small, and being crushed by the heaviness and finality of goodbye.
I don’t miss the days and weeks and months of crippling sorrow, the years of weariness, the unfairness that life goes on and kids need lunch and have to be potty trained and the laundry still needs to be folded and important milestones are still happening and all I really want to do is crawl under my covers and weep.
All those times I cried in the shower, or curled up with his blankie, or watched people around me live a seemingly carefree life while my heart was constantly shattering.
If I wanted to, I could easily make any of these painful pictures the cover shot of my journey through grief. It’s a long, lonely, debilitating road. The emotions are raw. The pain extreme, searing beyond comprehension.
But the truth is, even when I don’t feel it, I still know it… it’s all temporary.
The pain, the loss, the longing… it doesn’t last.
I live in the confidence that one beautiful day, the tears will be wiped away. The pain will be redeemed, the darkness will be gone.
And until that day, God is writing a beautiful story. A story of hope and promise and he’s whispering constantly to me, “Eternity… eternity… eternity…”
I need these whispers. It’s easy to forget that the happy ending is waiting, easy to get distracted and overwhelmed and weary. The pull of this world is strong. The lies telling us this broken place is all that matters are deceiving.
But the truth is stronger. Hope is growing.
And that darkness? It’s not dark for Him. Psalm 139 tells us so.
Even in my darkest moments of grief, there has always been light. Sometimes pinpricks, sometimes blazing brightness. His presence brings hope. Light is always brighter than the darkness, we just have to choose to see it.
And so I choose gratitude. Not because I’m thankful for all the hard things but because the hard things help me see the beautiful things. It’s all really a matter of where you look. The darkness helps me focus even more on the light. God’s hand is seen best when everything else is ruined and broken. When he’s reaching through the destruction and pulling me up, promising it will all be made right.
Take heart, he has overcome the world.
