A fresh perspective is needed...

I heard from three elder wives on Thursday.  It was the weekend of the almost annual Elder retreat.  The one where they take their wives, and we laugh and talk and debrief and stay in an amazing bed and breakfast in Granbury.  And we walk around downtown Granbury and shop.  We have delightful fancy dinners with our husbands and each other. We make memories.  And Saturday morning, we girls sit and share our hearts with each other and pray for each other.  I know sometimes people think  that we all hang out with each other all the time, but we are actually spread out into different ministries.  Our husbands bear great loads as they shepherd the Lord's flock at Countryside.  And that time together is refreshing and encouraging and reminds us it's a shared load.

Several of the girls texted to say they missed me this year.  They have no idea how much it meant to be missed.  Others added their thoughts to me this morning at church.  So. Very. Special.

And...it opened the knowledge that one year ago, Daryl and I began the end of our story together.  The elder retreat was the weekend that we started the quick downward spiral.  I am so aware that now I will begin to have flashbacks to the events of last October to December.  I will re-live so much in my mind and heart.  And it's stuff I was finally, finally starting to forget.

I need a fresh perspective.

So much of life is filtered through human emotion and human ratings of "good" and "bad".

We aren't always right.

What we fail to see, so often, is the goodness of God in all things. That in our short sightedness of the "here and now" we fail to see the things that are to the praise and glory of the Father in the forever.

So, I shall try my best to look at the memories from a different angle.  The angle that this was not the beginning of my season of loss, but the beginning of the season of God calling Daryl to a most wonderful forever.  And I will rehearse His goodness at every memory.  And I will try my best not to think of what I have lost out on, like being an Elder's wife, having a husband to do things with, and having a life companion, but to watch to see what God writes as my next chapter.  Because, you know, He is good.  May it all be viewed as to His glory.

I Can't Help Falling in Love With You...

If you have ever experienced grief, and most people have, you know that it hits at very odd times.
I was sitting in a restaurant completing an inspection.  It was a very tiny Sushi restaurant, run by very sweet Asian folks.  The Elvis song, "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You" plays.  Overhead.  Right in my ears. Elvis. Sigh.  Daryl loved Elvis almost as much as he loved me.  First a little trickle of a tear.  Then two long trickles.  Then quiet sobs.  There were no customers in the tiny restaurant...just three very sweet young Asians who ran the place.  No matter how hard I tried to hide it, they figured it out.  One guy quietly brought me a sturdy napkin and walked a way.  Those sweet kids let me blow my nose, finish my report, and walk out without having to explain it all.  I did let them know the basics.  They smiled, and let it go.