I can see her all the way down the aisle-even if she doesn’t say a word, I know.
I know.
She‘s carrying a burden wrapped in love and buried deep inside. Someone she poured life into is no longer here. The missing and the daily sorrow is etched on her face even as she smiles.
What to do? What to do?
Making a decision without her better half to help her is overwhelming. She wants to cry but holds back the tears because, “What would people think?”
So I go up to her and tell her what I think: “Would you like some help?”
That opens the floodgates.
“I’m looking for hairbands-something to match my white hair. I have so little left-losing it because of stress, you know. “
Silence while I help her look.
“My husband passed three months ago. We were married 60 years. I just can’t believe he’s gone.”
I tell her about Dominic-brief version-so she knows that I understand.
“He’s not suffering anymore and I guess I should be better. But I just miss him!”
I take her hand and look into her beautiful eyes-eyes that are full of love and compassion and sorrow-and tell her that she will miss him as long as she lives. That’s how we’re made.
Great love means great grief. A shared lifetime can’t be severed by death. We carry that sorrow because our hearts still carry the love.
And I tell her that no one has the right to rush her along. Her wounded heart is a witness to love. It’s a tribute to her husband and the life they shared. It’s testimony to the power of God in her that she can bear the wound and still remain.
We prayed, and hugged and both went away refreshed.
Walking wounded has made me much more aware that God places people in my path who are wounded too.
I want to be the person that stops, no matter what. I want to be who God created me in Christ Jesus to be. I want to walk in the good works He has laid out for me ahead of time.
It’s a way of redeeming this sorrow and weaving something beautiful from my tears.
God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would do good works. God had planned in advance those good works for us. He had planned for us to live our lives doing them.
Ephesians 2:10 ICV
thelifeididntchoose 