Time to let it go

Today is the day I have decided to begin to force myself back to normality. David has been incredibly tender to me during all this. His advice: "Grieve. Grieve however you need to because it's different for everyone. " And, so I have, and I'm sure will continue to. I know that dwelling in grief isn't where God would have me be. That's too much focus on me and not enough on Him. I know my mom's not grieving over missing us because she's full in the presence of the Lord and there's no crying there, praise God!

I was reading Isaiah 53 earlier and settled in on the part of verse 4 that says, Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows... One of my favorite commentators explains it this way:

At this point, the prophet does not have in mind the way the Messiah took our guilt and God's wrath upon Himself. Here, he has in view how the Messiah took our pain upon Himself. He made our griefs His own, and our sorrows as if they were His. The image is that He loaded them up and carried them on His back, so we wouldn't have to.

How many people carry around pain - griefs and sorrows - that Jesus really carried for them? He took them from us, but for it to do us any good, we must release them.

If I'm to be obedient, then it's time to release the pain and grief to Him.

David talked with Daddy for me last night (my voice still isn't back completely and Daddy is terribly hard of hearing). He said that my brother and his son were there yesterday helping him get some work done. He is staying busy, but night time is the worst for him, of course. Please continue to pray for him.

My mother loved cardinals and has a house filled with different figurines of them everywhere. When she finally was able to be brought home, my brother David bought a bird feeder and placed it outside her window. Filling it with sunflower seeds made it perfect for the cardinals. It was a sweet tender gift from God that the moment Mama passed on to His arms, He sent a cardinal to light on the feeder. Small reminders of His mercy and grace...