The longest Winter

   When we moved to this house 5 years ago I had no idea that this home and farm I shared with my parents would provide me with just a short chance to get to know my dad as an adult. I had no idea that these few, fleeting years would be all I was ever going to get this side of eternity.

It was my first time living near my parents since adulthood, I thought I would have so much more time with him.

   It was a cool and crisp day in October. A typical cloudy gray Autumn day in Michigan. As I arrived home with the kids from a long morning of activities, I saw that my dad was up to his usual business of fixing. My dad the tinkerer, always tinkering. I had no idea that that would be the last time I would ever see him here on this earth.

   I never even noticed them leave for the hospital. It was only after I looked at my phone that I realized my mom was taking dad in because of chest pain. Then another text comes through, “Dad started convulsing and passed out...I don't know what's going on....”

I rushed to the hospital to be with my mom. What's going? What is happening to my strong, invincible daddy? We sit. We wait. We talk about how he was feeling, what happened in the hospital. Chest pain, short breathing, clammy hands, blood coming out of his nose.

We keep sitting. We continue waiting. Anxious to see him, to see what the damage was, why this happened, how bad he was hurt, how much time the healing would take. They come and take us into a room. We're sure it must have been a heart attack, or stroke. Maybe he's hurt really bad, maybe the road to recovery would be long. The thought didn't even cross our minds...

   Then the words came out, as heavy as lead, “We did all we could but we couldn't bring him back. He passed away.”

I couldn't even swallow the words. I choked on them. No. What? No! What?! He's not gone, he couldn't be gone, NO!

As hard as I tried to reject the reality they were presenting, the weight of it overtook me and I broke. Wailing tears and sounds of agony filled the small room my mom, brother and I sat in. We cried and held each other and tried to make sense of the reality that we could hardly understand. A life without dad in it.

   The thing that no one really tells you about grief, pain and loss, is that it hits you so hard at first, like a freight train at the speed of sound. But then as the months go by the grief becomes septic, like an infection that travels through your body. Hitting one part of you at a time.

The pain of loss doesn't really go away over time, it just changes form. Sometimes its more of a sharp biting pain, and other times it is a faint gnawing in the deepest part of your soul.

When we loose a big piece of our lives, it effects every other part of our lives in ways we only realize as we travel down the road forward. They call it the road to healing, but even though the bleeding stops, the limb never grows back again.

   This would become the longest Winter of my life.

Where are you God? You feel so far away. Where are you joy? I can't remember what you look like.

Deep sadness crept in quietly, like the cold ground falls asleep under beds of snow. My heart became as numb as the lifeless frozen earth in the coldest months of Winter. I was fragile and fractured, like a snowflake that rests on frosty night's ground. Then misplaced anger pierces, and words cut deep and shatter me.

   The next few months would mark much more pain. Life turned upside down, then sideways, then upside down again. Everything was changing. My life fell apart, my family fell apart, my heart fell apart. Then the hard work began. The hard, hard work of rebuilding, starting over, letting go, moving on.
But I didn't want to keep going.
Life just felt like a sea of infinite gray.
Like an endless Winter. No sign of warmth. No hint of joyous life.

   That ancient snake sees when we set down our armor and don't want to fight anymore. That's when he whispers those evil little lies that are meant to fang deep into our souls with poison. Just a few drops here, and a few drops there, soon we are slipping away into the darkness.

   It's your fault. You're not good enough. You're not loved. You're not forgiven.

   One at a time we hear the lies and somewhere deep inside, the deepest, dark parts of us where we hide away our doubts, they start to sound true. Our poisoned hearts start to resonate the lies, “It is my fault, I'm not good enough, I'm not loved, I'm not forgiven.”

   Do you hear it? Listen closely. Those lies, like faint whispers in the wind. Always swirling, all the time. Then when someone or something screams it in our face we half believe it because it sounds so familiar. Yes, I know this message, it must be true, my mind recognizes it. Then we surrender to the doubt.

   But what if the most familiar things were the most ridiculous lies of them all? Life and death themselves are the lies we most believe in. That this life is all that there is, and that death is the end. But it is not!

   A beautiful God-man, named Truth came to show us the lies, because you don't know what the lies are until you know the Truth. And here's the best part, the truth will set you free from the lies. Because you don't know that it's not your fault until Someone explains that the fault is in all of us. And you won't understand that you don't have to be good enough until Someone shows you a love that is true and unconditional. And you'll never believe you are so loved and forgiven until Someone actually goes to Hell and back for you and pays the ultimate price to forgive you and prove their love for you.

   Lies don't disappear by telling them they're not true just like darkness doesn't disappear by telling it that it isn't real. Things only change when you turn the light on.

And as the Spring sunshine triggered the ground to burst forth in life, I open my eyes and remember that God's light of truth is the only thing that can banish the lies, the hurt and the pain from my beat down, bruised up, poisoned heart. His love is the only antivenom.

   I'm convinced that the bravest most courageous people aren't the ones who take big risks. They are the ones who have been torn apart, beaten down, and left for dead. The ones who face the reality of that hurt and still hold on to hope. The ones who get back up, having felt the pain, and keep going in spite of the risk of experiencing that pain again.

   Lord help me to be courageous as I continue to walk through this life journey to you. I know that loss and pain are both behind me and ahead of me but I face that reality with dignity and hope, knowing that your plans for me are good, and you will always hold my heart. You'll never leave me and you will always keep the light of truth on so I can always find my way back to You.