I am always aware of a thief I have. It's with me all the time these days. It constantly reminds me that Christmas for us this year brings pain. It steals my joy of buying gifts - I wish to buy gifts for one more person. It steals my joy of making cookies - I wish I had one more person helping me. It steals my joy of planning a surprise for Daddy - I wish I had one more person planning it with me. I even feel it stealing my longing to go to Ken's Joys (a store with hundreds of things that make little people happy.) I love to go there and buy simple things that bring big smiles and hours of entertainment. It comes beside me and mars the joy that comes from children planning surprises for each other. It takes over and wipes me out. I give up and give in to it again. My thief is grief. I am learning that this thief and the joy of Christmas are on opposite ends of the spectrum of my feeling. To experience them both at the same time feels very confusing. But really, Christmas isn't about giving presents and family time - although they are good things. Christmas is about Jesus - His ultimate gift of His very own Son to be my Saviour. The Saviour who died for me - the Saviour who can take control of my Christmas thief if I let Him.
Last year after I was at Ken's Joys, Merlin took the girls into another room separately and let them help wrap the presents they were giving to their sisters. It was quite the ordeal and I observed with amusement the one that wasn't wrapping and trying to see and hear underneath the door. I can still see Kira there - her ear as close to the opening between the door and the rug as possible, just hoping to get an idea of what Marlea and Daddy were wrapping inside.
My writing portrays my pain. All of us feel it. Marlea was talking about it tonight also, so I know she is thinking about it too. The struggle to stay present and be real is so difficult these days. Pray that we would exercise the grace and courage to embrace the reality we're experiencing.
Marylu and Merlin, Marlea, Anna
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I love your honesty, Marylu. I don't know you well, but reading your blog reminds me to pray for you all, and gives me the courage to be honest about the griefs I face. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteJesus knows thieves... He died with them... That portrayal of His familiarity with suffering struck me as I read your post.
I'm asking Him redeem your suffering, to use it somehow to enrich your celebration of His coming to be with us...
Marylu:
ReplyDeleteI pray that you Jesus will heal your pain,restore your joy & peace as only He can do.
Thank you for the reflections from your heart.
We were at the Inn a few weeks ago when Anna was ill & felt your pain & saw your suffering and my heart wanted to reach out to you & I did in prayer several times during the night.
The next morning, while you were both exhausted, Anna was much improved and we were all grateful to see her toddling around the Inn.
Your beautiful writings have touched so many in untold ways. You have allowed us, strangers for the most part, into your heart & your home and offered the opportunity and privilege to pray for all of you.
God is so good and He is so faithful & so loving & He will bring you the gifts of peace & comfort and restore your joy.
Sleep well tonight.
Love,
Lee T.
dear friend...my love - e
ReplyDeleteWish I could help carry your load. Trevor bought a little photo album and I was helping him fill it today with pics of Kira...it's his Kira album. Felt again a real loss as I thought of never knowing more of Kira. I can still hear her saying my name, "Aunt Edith", a few weeks before she died. I never will again. Till heaven.
ReplyDeleteLove you, sister
Edith
Marylu,
ReplyDeleteSorry we missed u a couple of weeks ago when we came to buy the famous gift for my in-laws. I so wanted to tell u i think of u ofter and pray that u will find some kind of peace soon. None of us can even begin to imagine what life is like for u now, except that we can only hope for the best for u, Merlin Marlea and Anna. May u all have the best Christmas ever even thou Kira is not physicaly here with u to celebrate. She will be present in many other ways for u. God Bless u all. Love from Donna, Danny, Megan and Matthew Nickel
Continuing to cover you and your family in prayer Marylu! My heart breaks for you all, and I know you long for the day where you will be reunited with Kira!!! The blessed hope is...one day you will see her again!!! The thief can't EVER take that away from you!
ReplyDeleteMerry CHRISTmas to you and God bless,
Lisa Ann DiNunzio
New Jersey
P.S. Hope you got the Christmas card
I mailed out to you!
I feel it with you. I would give anything to bring that thief to justice. We love you.
ReplyDeleteIn pain,
Rhonda
Marylu and Merlin,
ReplyDeleteI have prayed and contemplated over my writing to you both. We(my wife Joy and I)met you both briefly as we purchased a print hanging in your dining room. You shared your stories with us and I saw two parents coping with loss in the light of God's promises. As I come into contact with people like yourselves I am made aware of my own inadequacy to comfort or offer some balm of healing. I am humbled before our Creator as He makes clear that all I can do is in some small and insignificant way try to "bear (one)another's burden."
I am supremly confident that God from eternity past was fully aware of what He would place on you both. I must, and do, believe that His purpose for you is in some way similar to His offering up of His Child.
It was for others.
The veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom. A symbol of the shredding that was necessary for those who would to enter into the most Holy of ground. But to make that entryway was costly and painful. And we know that the Word does not return void.
Just as the Messianic Lamb was three days in the earth and rose again, so too, will Kira. Our Hope is eternal, but our separations are only temporary. After the death of Emmanuel many lost heart and were discouraged and grieved. But He fulfilled the sign of Jonah and showed Himself alive and well. Just changed: The same but different. So will all who are asleep in Christ Jesus. And faith and hope were restored so we can say that we will meet again.
All life has purpose and meaning. I also believe that death does as well. We do not grieve as those without hope, and we can show our hope through our losses and the hope of restoration.
I pray:
Psalm 3:3 upon you, that The Lord would lift up your head
Psalm 23:3 that you would feel the presence of the One who restores souls from despair
Psalm 144:2 that He would deliver you both from this pain
Isaiah 8:14 that you would find healing in His sanctuary
And that now, as always, your souls will dwell in the presence and peace of "The Prince of Peace" Isaiah 9:6
Blessings,
Paul