01/19/2022
Ryan, a newly widowed man asked me recently:
“Are you a different person than you were before Chris died?”
When the picture on the left was taken, Chris was my guiding light and my beacon. Our kids were part of him and our little lights.
I always knew I wanted a happy family life. That was everything to me. My biggest goal. Chris and the kids were my motivation to not let fear during Chris’s deployments force our family to sacrifice joy.
It seems the devil may have had the opposite goal for my life. And, God has pulled me up, dusted me off and loved me right back into the fight for a better life in spite of it all.
Today, I have about 72 weekends left with my oldest before he goes to college, and 122 with my daughter.
When I answered Ryan’s recent question, I felt a lot of weight in my, “yes” answer. Lately I haven’t thought as much about the silver and gold linings of pain. I am changed. And lately, I’m tired of it.
I am the same in my desire for a happy home life. I just haven’t been as good at it. As my kids have gotten older, I think I have felt less responsible to be their source of joking and fun and somehow, I think I may have lost that last bit of youthfulness that came with the playful package that Chris and I were together.
I also realize, the way I compartmentalized when Chris was deployed doesn’t work anymore. When praying about an area of focus for the upcoming year, I instantly got: “Letting Go”.
I thought it was going to be a great exercise of unloading. It has been. And, in moments of intense pain, I now know, it means much more than that. It means I have a choice to make: I can hang on to Chris or I can have the full joy of living. I can’t have both.
I feel like I accepted Chris’s death a long time ago. But, maybe acceptance and letting go are not the same. I don’t know.
What I do know is, change is on the horizon. I won’t waste the time I have left with my kids and I won’t waste the time and blessings God has given us because of what the devil has taken. I’m fighting back…I’m letting go.
What is stopping your joy? Are you ready to let it go?