Imposters Lurking...

 I knew I was going to hate this week.  I know that people say we shouldn't do things like that, pre-plan to hate a day or pre-plan a bad day or however you want to call it. The thing is I kinda hate weekends.  From Friday night to Monday morning I wish they would crawl into a hole.  

I know all the reasons for this dear reader, I understand completely why I dread Friday's and Saturday's, and Sunday's.  I can logically think it out and try and plan for it and put things in place to try and make it not be what it is, but it never really works.  So I fake it.  

I also know it's been a bit since I wrote, not because I haven't been feeling but because I've been feeling too much if that makes sense, and I mean lets be honest, it does get a bit repetitive after a while so even though I write in my head sometimes I don't always translate that writing to the page.  

There is this thing called a grief time line.  It talks about peak grief being four to six months into the process.   That seems to be what doctors and scientists have all said.  I don't know if I agree with the idea of peak grief because if what I am feeling has the potential to get worse I don't think I'm going to like it all that much.  

It's interesting to find how much going through the motions a person can do.  We learn how to fake it so much that there are times we can even fool ourselves into believing our own optical illusion.  With this, there have been days where I have just made myself put on that game face and I can almost make myself believe it's okay to do that, it's okay to nod and smile, even if the smile is so obviously a lie.  I think that's what's so hard in all this.  Because I mean let's be clear so much of I do and what we do is distract ourselves because in those times that there is no distraction, and there are many, the whole thing overwhelms.  It's like a big game of among us.  Where the traitor is hiding out and everyone is sus...

The other day I came across this as I was getting my coffee ready.   Where the machine is there's a cutting board and well it leans there it looks cool and it's one of those things that really don'ts move, I just wipe around it when I'm cleaning but every so often I'll move it and when I moved it there it was...

This was Josie, she just did things that would make you smile. They all do things that and it's hard and I feel bad because my mind and heart are so stuck on this.  I know it will be this way for a long time, likely forever and that's just how it is, but I so wish that there was some way to make none of this be true. 

I guess that's the hard part here.  Facebook is the constant reminder with it's remember this posts.  This time last the 18 year old went to college, finding the apartment,  moving her into it, spending those week day's there every other week it was amazing but it was the beginning of the pulling away right.  It's supposed to be that way, parents get a certain amount of time with them and then they have to watch them move off into the world.  I cried last year when that started but at the same time I was excited for what was to come for her.  Now she's off in the Army doing great things. The 14 year old is moving through life too.  Sophomore this year, it's like time marches and you watch these people that are so much a part of you and you can't wait to see what they will become even while you want to keep them trapped in their current form for as long as possible.  Knowing they are in the room next door or upstairs or in the kitchen or...or...or...

The thing is there were at least 9 more years closer to 10 and that's what makes this so much harder, to realize that 10 is now down to 3 or 4 but it's more.  It's not getting to see what she was going to become, and let's be clear as with the other two it was going to be something amazing. 

Her creativity , her drive, her desire to serve, all of it was so full and bright.   

The sting of death is something that we feel.  When Paul talks  about oh death where is your sting, he isn't saying what so many try and make him be saying.  He's not telling us we won't feel the sting of death here, ultimately the sting of death is mitigated well just read what he says...

⁵⁴ When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: 

Death has been swallowed up in victory.^, 

⁵⁵ Where, death, is your victory? 

Where, death, is your sting?^, 

 Christian Standard Bible. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020. Print.

See Paul gives us a when there to let us know how that works.  The sting is going to be here now.  The sting and the pain and the hurt and the sorrow and the anger and all those things are here and are going to be experienced here.  We don't get out of all of that just because we have a relationship with Jesus, we just get a promise that there will be a point, when we step into eternity, that we won't feel that sting.  

The hard part is we do feel it now and in feeling it now we have to walk through it, to deal with it, to feel it over and over and over or just feel it because it's real. 

And so dear reader I leave you.  Knowing that there will come a point when the sting won't be there, but not for a moment believing that we get to avoid the pain and sorrow now.  

Be Safe...