Mourn with those who mourn

Music is theraputic to me. Hence the song above. Maybe that makes me weird, I dunno? I'm just having a hard time with Nita dying. I think I'm probably not the only one. Both kids are in bed. I'm doing some laundry and thought I'd check my email. So, Ray... He's at church. He's writing Nita's funeral message. He told me he will be home shortly. That was 2 1/2 hours ago. He's always good on his word. I don't want to go over to check on him because I know this is the hardest thing he's ever done. I don't want to see him crying. I don't know how he is going to do this. I think this will be his 5th funeral. This will be the first funeral of someone that we were in church with last week. I'm a control freak and I don't like that I can't 'fix' this. I can't make it better. I can't make it go away. I can't ignore it. I'm sad for selfish reasons. I do understand that she is a new creation in heaven right now. I know that she wouldn't want us to mourn her. But selfishly, I don't want her to be gone. She was so loving. I'll miss our visits at Awana. She always cracked me up. She always stood firm on what she believed. I'll miss her unconditional love. You can't find that just anywhere. I'll miss the way she always told Ray how great his sermon was. I'm thankful that she allowed the Lord to speak to her on Sundays and didn't let human words get in the way. I'll miss seeing her carry her worn bible... you could tell she used it. You could tell not only by the worn look but by the way she lived. I'll miss the way she made me smile and laugh. I'll miss the excited look the 3rd and 4th grade girls had when they got to pick a book cover she had hand made from random fabric. I hope if I live to my 70's that I am half the woman that she was. Goofy and all. I learned from Ray that she had Proverbs 31 memorized. That sparked a memory I had that she had recited that to me in the basement of the church... I can't remember when, maybe at Awana. I read Proverbs 31 yesterday. Maybe I need to memorize it... I'm no where near it. Proverbs 31:30(Message)Charm can mislead and beauty soon fades. The woman to be admired and praised is the woman who lives in the Fear-of-God.

Thank you Nita for the legacy you have left us and the reminder that sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers the way we want Him to.

Matthew 11:28 (NLT) Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.


Update 10/2018:  I started to delete this post.  It surfaced a lot of hard memories.  I never imagined how different our lives would be one year later, losing her husband not much later and then leaving this church Ray had pastored for almost 4 years, then beginning our homeschooling journey.  But we are to learn from the past, so I think I'll just leave it.  Nita still to this day is one of the biggest influences in my Christian life, even as these memories fade.