Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our house to yours!
There is so much that can be said as this year ends. There are so many emotions and even more memories, not all that I'd really like to relive. Last year on this day it was nothing less than sheer will power to put on a happy face for our children. It was awfully hard to ring in a New Year when we knew what was coming, especially as our sweet little boy lay on a couch as a recent loss of function signaled the end was drawing ever nearer. This New Year's celebration has its mixed feelings as well. Our lives are moving on and our Grant is a memory; one we will treasure, but a memory none-the-less. That is a very hard pill for me to swallow. There are phases to grief. I am convinced this is God's protection so our heart doesn't experience its crushing weight all at once. It couldn't bear it. And you, my dear friends, have helped with that as well. Those of you who have prayed for us, served us, written us, held up our arms when we couldn't do it ourselves anymore; these things are the definition of what it means to bear one another's burdens. And we thank you.
The mother and very human part of me is mad. I don't want to move on. My heart is still broken. Sometimes I really want to stomp my foot and just scream. Very grown up, I know! I miss him so much it hurts. I want roly polies in my laundry, all the rocks in my landscaping flipped over because someone was looking for snakes. I want dirty fingerprints everywhere and dirt on the carpet because he was digging a hole in the field for no reason. I want to hear his laugh. He is part of us and both of us have said that part of us died on Feb. 6th, 2009 as well. But even in that there is hope. And I tell you without that, neither one of us could get out of bed each day. There would be no point. The hope is that this world, and all that happens while we are on it, are not IT. I've said it before but we daily have to remind ourselves of it. Jesus came to redeem what went wrong so that we could have a future worth living for; eternity with Him. Some may say this is not enough to make them yearn for heaven. I understand this. I may have once thought it. The Bible says in James 1:17 that, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Everything that we associate with good, goodness, or good feelings, come from God. That feeling we get after a really fun day with friends or family, the satisfaction of a job well done or an award won, the warm fuzzy feeling we get when we are appreciated, loved, admired or remembered. He is the author of those. He created the world in which they exist, the things we love to look at; the beauty of spring, the majestic mountains, the deep blue ocean, a starry night, and the glowing sunset. It's all His handiwork. Even the fulfillment we seek in things in this world that are rarely profitable, that need for fulfillment and satisfaction and completeness, that good feeling that begs to be chased; it's Creator is also God. He is the definition of good. It is His character, His very nature. That need we have for goodness and fulfillment in our lives was made BY Him and can only be found IN Him. And heaven is a lifetime of that very thing! Never wanting, never needing, a continual fulfillment and satisfaction, and a true completeness, which is only found in His presence and will be made perfect and unending only in heaven because He is there. That's IT. This is why no matter how mad I get, no matter how sad I am at times, no matter how much my heart aches, because it does, I, we, still love Him. I owe Him my everything. I could not hold up my end of His covenant because I could not be good enough, so He sent Jesus as my ransom. He didn't have to, He was not obligated to. He just wanted to, because He loved me . . . and you. This does not change the circumstances of this temporary world in that there is still sickness, death, meanness, trials and pain. But, it changes the outcome. And while we are waiting, we are not alone, and that presence that we will experience one day in total completeness in heaven, we can now experience, in part, on earth because He resides in us when we surrender our lives to Him. And in that there is comfort too. Grant is with God in His presence. I saw Grant leave this world. I saw his face, I heard him laugh and he was happy. God told Grant 3 1/2 months before he left this world that he was going to die. It was a moment in time I will never forget. We were traveling to Texas from Kentucky because we needed to check on some things at the farm and Grant really wanted to visit. Traveling was so difficult for him, especially then because we didn't have much we could give him in the way of pain relief. I would really have liked to smack some of his doctors at that point, but that's another story. We were half way there and had stopped in the hotel for the night. Grant was lying in bed and arching his back and screaming, "I'm hospital sick! Take me to the hospital. I am dying. Quick!" He hated hospitals at this point and doctors even more so this was something that he was saying this. I am not sure that I cannot adequately convey to you the helplessness I felt in that moment, nor the sheer torture that it is to watch your child suffer. Poor Shawn, as a physician, this was one of his worst moments of desperation. We were both crying and then we had to do the unthinkable; we had to tell him that there was nothing that could be done even if we took him to a hospital because this sickness couldn't be fixed. I will never forget the look on his face. We had failed him as parents. He was hurting and there was nothing we could do to help him. We'd given him everything we had. So we did the only thing we could do. We cried out to the God Most High. And He delivered. We claimed every promise we knew that the Bible offered. We prayed God's character qualities from our list and asked Him to show Himself to Grant because He had promised in His Word He was those things. And in the middle of our pleas of desperation, Grant held up his hand and said, "Stop, God is talking to me." A dead silence fell over that hotel room as Shawn and I, through tears, watched him. His little eyes were tightly closed and he was nodding and through tears of his own saying, "mm, uh" in agreement and responding as though someone was right there in the room talking to him. Then after a couple minutes he opened his eyes and looked at us. I asked him what God had said to him. He replied, "He said I'm going to die very soon. He said He is sending His angels to me and to not be afraid and that He is holding me in His mighty arms."
I am not sure how to fully express to you the emotion of that moment, but I was comforted, scared, devastated and incredibly humbled all at once. From that day on Grant was never the same and Grant's God delivered on His every promise to him on that October day. Around this time last year those angels came. They were his constant companions until his death. Thanks to Make-A-Wish, and their gift of a communication machine, he was able to tell us a little about what he was seeing. It will forever be etched in my memory. Although it was not until after he died that I caught a glimpse into what God had really done for him. Grant was describing to us one day what he was seeing. He kept asking me to add colors to his machine. He started pushing blue, purple, etc. and used up all the buttons and kept signing "more." I asked, "More colors?" He nodded yes. I asked if he was seeing angels. He shook his head no. I asked what it was, but I could not understand his answer. I ask how big it was. He was moving his hands all around. I asked if it was bigger than he could describe and he said yes. I didn't know what he was seeing at that time, but I remember crying because of the look on his face. It must have been something to behold. A few weeks after he died, we were sitting in church one night & our pastor was talking about the book of Revelation and he began to describe the vision that John was retelling of the throne of God. I almost leaped out of my chair. I guess I had never paid attention to the details of that passage before. But, instantaneously I knew. I looked at Shawn and said, "That is it, that is what he saw, the throne of God. He described it just like that." Then I cried. I do that a lot now. I was overwhelmed. It was real! I knew in my heart it was real, but now I KNEW it was real. He saw it and He is there with Jesus.
And because Jesus is in me and Grant is with Him, Grant is also with me. I cannot hug him any longer but he is there right in my heart. And One day because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross, I CAN hug my Grant again. This is huge! It doesn't get any huger--if that's even a word! The future is good even if this new year holds more sorrow. We still cry and grief is not yet complete, but there is hope!
Happy New Year to you!
A Little Christmas Fun!
Gingerbread Village. Family Tradition. Very competitive and very fun!
The farm (well, part of it) and the beautiful blue Texas sky. Oh, how I have missed it!
