Moving On

A little over two weeks later, she's been gone now from this world.  Life keeps moving on.  The world keeps turning.  Bills keep coming in.  My children still need babysitters, so we call new ones. We still need to eat, sleep, exercise--follow God.

Life keeps moving on.

And yet, when you least expect it, the sadness will creep into the crevices of the healing wound and make it sting just a bit.  I've rocked my daughter to sleep every night since Miss Savannah's funeral.  Every night her tired, worn out little mind cries for the friend she lost in that girl.  And I rock her gently, reminding her she's in a better place, reminding her that one day, if Jesus lives in our hearts that we will see her again.  Every night.  Then she will sigh and sniffle and close her tired eyes only to wake to another full day tomorrow.

Life keeps moving on.

And then I make time to meet with the girl's precious mother, and the healing wound cracks a bit deeper, only oozing not bleeding.  And we share stories and cry shared tears of remembrance and we try to offer each other comfort in our knowing of her.  We offer encouragement in the days to come.  We comfort each other and hug the hurt away for another day and leave lunch feeling lighter and less burdened and slightly more healed than before.

And life keeps moving on.

And that's the truth.  The world will not stop for one girl, one boy, one man, one woman here on earth. That's not as God intended.  Life will continue to move, and for the sake of our fleshly minds, we must find a way to move with it, or we WILL go crazy.  So how do we do that?

I talk to myself often, and I found myself thinking about why it's so hard.  Why, when we know beyond a shadow of doubt where she is, why is it so hard to let her go?  Why is it so difficult when we know she is no longer in pain?  Why do we insist on reopening the wound and feeling the pain?

For me, it's because I feel a deep sense of loyalty to the people I love.  I feel like it's wrong for me to live life as if they never existed, to keep doing the things you always did before.  Shouldn't their presence here on earth have meant something?  Shouldn't it have made a mark, left a tangible hole in the universe?  She was that important!

And we battle this fleshly desire to hold onto something that was never physical to begin with.

Did you here me?  She was never physical to begin with.  Anyone who sees the shell laying in the coffin knows this.  That is not her.  She is not there.  So if she's not there now, then what we saw on the outside, the physical person we could touch, was never really her to begin with!  It's never really any of us!

And contemplating the whys in my car one day, this is the conversation that ensued:
HOLY SPIRIT: Do you really think she's sitting around up here mourning the fact that you are all so sad she's gone?
ME: No, Lord.  Your word says there is no sadness or tears in heaven, so maybe she just doesn't think of us at all.  But no, I don't think that's true either.  I think she remembers us, maybe even prays for us, but she's whole in every sense now, and while she's not You Lord, she's seeing life from Your perspective finally.  She has no need to be sad when she knows and is feeling the truth that You will make all things right in Your time.  She no longer battles this physical flesh that weighs us down here on earth that fights with the spirit inside of us as your children.  She lives life there in complete trust, in full joy, in a true, unencumbered faith.
HOLY SPIRIT: Exactly.  So if she's moved on and is not mourning you, why won't you do the same?  Because it honestly isn't effecting her one bit at this point.

And because I'm a very blunt person, sometimes God is just that blunt with me.  I have no excuses other than my battle is with this selfish flesh.  My sadness is a normal reaction in this world because my spirit lives in a sinful body.  It's not wrong unless I indulge it.  It's not sin unless I allow the devil to leverage it in my life to justify actions that are unwise.  It's not harmful unless I dwell on it.  It just is what it is because my flesh is my flesh.

And when I come to grips with this truth, my eyes clear, my heart lightens, my step quickens, and I can breath joy again.  My God loves me just the same.  He gives grace to the weak in any definition of the word.  He knows what it means to be human.  To be bound by a flesh and emotions that fight His Spirit inside.  He knows.  He understands, and the best part is, He conquered it!  So in Him, through Him, He will conquer it for you too.

So lean on Him.  Turn to Him.  Look to His words.  Look expectantly for His presence in all things.  He is there.

He is moving life on.

And if He's the one doing the moving, I guess I can be ok with that.  I will rest in Him, and He will carry me on the days I'm really weak, when the old wound throbs deep and painful, and when it's not so painful, I get to walk with Him, talk with Him, and do life with Him because He makes my world turn, and anything but Him is just a shell of what could be, an illusion of what actually is.

Be encouraged!  There is more to life than THIS life!   And it's ok to move on and find out what God has in store for you.  Savannah Veale is smiling in heaven right now, reaping all the benefits of the treasure in heaven she stored while on earth.  I want to do the same.  I want to keep storing up treasure in heaven because the physical, worldly, fleshly things are an illusion of the devil, and moths and rust will destroy them all in time, but one day, I will dance in heaven with my sweet girl for all eternity, so I want to make sure what's waiting there for me is well-stocked=)