Sunshine and the Cloud

Sunshine - I feel sunshine again. I see it almost every morning as I stumble out to get the paper. I see it prodding a flower to be real and beautiful. I see it as I look out the window during the day. I feel it in my step, I hear it as I sing while working, and as I speak it to my children. I glance across the street and see our cow who's name ironically is "Sunshine." I taste it as I drink the milk she gives. It feels as if God is encouraging me to be brave and feel the sunshine of life. We teased Kira that her and the cow have the same name. Now, I look back and wonder at God. I feel sunshine as I tramp through the flowerbeds and step on green grass. I gaze in wonder at the sun and it's amazing God-given ability to give life to things that lie dormant and ugly. Amid the sunshine I feel a cloud. A cloud that seems to follow me wherever I go. It follows me to the store, on vacation, and to church. It even follows me to bed in the dark. The cloud has sadness in it. Deep sorrow, pain, and frustration. It contains a wish to live the last several months over and the new plan would magically be full of miracles. It holds the unending mystery of how life would be if Kira would be here right now. Sometimes it feels like the cloud holds the rain that comes out of my eyes and runs unashamedly down my face. The cloud frightens me. I have never lived with an overshadowing cloud. The more that time goes on, the more it seems like this cloud will stay with me for the rest of my life. Reality is that somehow I need to learn to be okay with the cloud. Right now it looks impossible, way too far out of my comfort zone. I never liked clouds; I always chased them away somehow or figured them out so I was okay with them. This cloud is so different, because God is in this cloud too. This cloud is somehow a tie to the healing process that I haven't figured out yet. Maybe it's not for me to even figure out. Maybe with God the cloud is chased to the foot of the cross? Maybe it will happen and I won't even realize it. Maybe the sunshine will make it smaller. But for now, I want the cloud. I also want it to be a redeemed cloud.....

Today I was doing some cleaning in the girls' bedroom. As I moved the nightstand that used to be Kira's something shiny caught my eye. There tucked in between the mattress and box-spring were two quarters. I snickered, remembering all the times she would run off with whatever money she could find. Her piggy bank had an unending appetite. It sometimes got so hungry it would eat all of Marlea's money or the change box pennies. I don't know where the quarters came from that I found today but something tells me they weren't hers!

Pray that we will be able to continue the healing in our lives. It gets almost harder as time goes on and yet the pain continues. I long for a picture of what healing actually is. To experience healing for such deep unending pain is somewhat mysterious to us. "This world is not my home, I am just a passing thru, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue..." are words to a song I think of during the day.

Marylu and Merlin, Marlea, Anna