I have learned to appreciate seasons of joy.
I don't write about it often, but, during my very formative years, age 12 to age 18, my family lost a number of family members -- 7 deaths in six years culminating with the most heart-breaking, the death of my older sister to cancer in 2002.
During those years, I learned about the brevity of life, the fragility of life, and the inevitability of death. Lessons I have not forgotten.
While the deaths over the years taught me many lessons none of them caused the immense grief and total heartbreak of the death of my sister. I headed off to college ten weeks after she died and was left to handle this mourning as best as I could.
There was pain in my heart, a tightness in my chest, for years.
For the first few years, it was a very prominent, acute pain... then for the next few years it lessened.
If you haven't felt that kind of grief, you do not yet understand the pain to which I refer and, if you have felt that kind of grief, first of all, you have my sincere condolences, and secondly, you know exactly the pain to which I refer.
It took years... YEARS for my family to recover. We never went back to the way we were before my sister died... we simply went on -- because we had no choice. We never got over Tracey's death... we never will, but while her death was once the lens through which we viewed everything, and now it has become a scarred and tender spot in our hearts.
The years, YEARS of grief I experienced makes me recognize the years of joy I am currently experiencing.
In the past five years, I have met my husband, fell in love with my husband, was proposed to, and married by my husband (in the most beautiful wedding in the history of the world), had three-and-a-half wonderful years of marriage, welcomed the most precious baby girl into the world, and began the amazing journey of being her parents.
The icing on the cake of these past five years is that our parents are alive and healthy, most of our grandparents are alive and healthy-ish, and Chris' siblings have been in joyful seasons -- one getting married, and the other welcoming one (and any day, a second) daughter into the world.
We are TRULY in a season of joy.
I am not a pessimistic person... but I have learned from my life experiences, and I know, that until Jesus returns, Chris and I will not always be in a season as joyful as we are in now. This season is made more joyful by the heartache I've experienced, and with the true perspective that life will not always be that way.
Behold the sight of familial joy:
I don't write about it often, but, during my very formative years, age 12 to age 18, my family lost a number of family members -- 7 deaths in six years culminating with the most heart-breaking, the death of my older sister to cancer in 2002.
During those years, I learned about the brevity of life, the fragility of life, and the inevitability of death. Lessons I have not forgotten.
While the deaths over the years taught me many lessons none of them caused the immense grief and total heartbreak of the death of my sister. I headed off to college ten weeks after she died and was left to handle this mourning as best as I could.
There was pain in my heart, a tightness in my chest, for years.
For the first few years, it was a very prominent, acute pain... then for the next few years it lessened.
If you haven't felt that kind of grief, you do not yet understand the pain to which I refer and, if you have felt that kind of grief, first of all, you have my sincere condolences, and secondly, you know exactly the pain to which I refer.
It took years... YEARS for my family to recover. We never went back to the way we were before my sister died... we simply went on -- because we had no choice. We never got over Tracey's death... we never will, but while her death was once the lens through which we viewed everything, and now it has become a scarred and tender spot in our hearts.
The years, YEARS of grief I experienced makes me recognize the years of joy I am currently experiencing.
In the past five years, I have met my husband, fell in love with my husband, was proposed to, and married by my husband (in the most beautiful wedding in the history of the world), had three-and-a-half wonderful years of marriage, welcomed the most precious baby girl into the world, and began the amazing journey of being her parents.
The icing on the cake of these past five years is that our parents are alive and healthy, most of our grandparents are alive and healthy-ish, and Chris' siblings have been in joyful seasons -- one getting married, and the other welcoming one (and any day, a second) daughter into the world.
We are TRULY in a season of joy.
I am not a pessimistic person... but I have learned from my life experiences, and I know, that until Jesus returns, Chris and I will not always be in a season as joyful as we are in now. This season is made more joyful by the heartache I've experienced, and with the true perspective that life will not always be that way.
Behold the sight of familial joy:
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