How Can Joy & Grief Live Side By Side?

As I began to take in the miracle of integration happening during the intensity of last year I sought daily guidance for living what felt completely and utterly impossible; daily wedding joys and deadlines coexisting with moment by moment prayer requests and updates from the bedside of my cousin’s son in (what we would learn were to be) his final days. This was intense joy intertwined with deep grief.  I could only go within (about every five minutes) and ask for comfort, guidance, relief and peace in the intense NOW that was unfolding.

Just days before the wedding, in one 24 hour period, we experienced two polar opposites. First, the joy-filled phone call from Dan and Savannah in Pensacola (about to celebrate Dan’s graduation from

So much joy….

Navigator School) to announce what plane (MC 130J) and unit he was assigned to.  We also learned that after a period of further training in Albuquerque they would be posted to England. We were standing in the middle of Men’s Warehouse while my husband was being fitted for his wedding suit.  We both huddled over the phone with the speaker button pressed ON as we giggled and grinned as the good news poured forth.

Second, came the news the following morning that Skylar Haws had gone to be with our Lord at 6:45am.  My first thoughts were “The

fight is over; the terrible ordeal of trying to get ahead of the virulent cancer is no more.”

So deep is our grief…..

Those past 18 months have been indescribable, even though I experienced them from afar. The pain and suffering involved on all levels was monumental, complicated, and unrelenting. To receive this news so close to the “good news” of soon to be married sweethearts was nearly unbearable, particularly as Skylar left behind his own dear wife. They were married less than 7 months.

How does one receive the opposites life offers without being torn apart? I’ll tell you how: GRACE.  Grace holds all of our opposites tenderly, without judgment and allows it all to be as it is.  No explanations, no recriminations, nothing but the life of Christ being pumped through our veins and hearts.  Yet. That was enough. That IS enough.  Love allows all of it.  The joy, the sorrow, the impossibilities, the loss, the gain, the birth of a new family in marriage, the death of a precious loved one as he was released into eternity.

This is the true message of Easter.  We remember Love holds life and death, joy and sorrow, pain and delight because Love holds us.  We are tenderly held, welcomed, invited and beloved always.  In sickness and in health, ’til death do us part. God’s promises are eternal, for everyone, no matter what you call it.  Only Love is real.

Wholeness is how you get through the opposites of life.  Run, slouch, flee, saunter……..but return to your Wholeness, which is within your dear and precious heart.  Jesus will meet you there, every time. Go now my precious ones and be the Love that you are.  Watch for the resurrection which comes every time.

Indeed, I am risen.