This picture is from the days when our love was fresh, and new, and exciting. We were young and crazy, beautiful, and thin, and so much fun! That being said, I think I like us better now - we mean more, we are more, it is sweet, and deep, and oh so rewarding!
You age well my prince, like a good cheese or wine, absolutely delicious... Another year down and a lifetime yet to come!
I've learned some things about grief. It takes time... It takes its own time... Not mine. It also takes energy. I have learned that when you don't have those to give, or when you tight-fistedly wont give freely of these oh-so-precious commodities, something ugly will take shape - a mutated and warped little monster is born... So here I have found myself - attempting to destroy said little monster by first ripping off his head and then beating him with it, until all that remains is the true nursling grief, the comfort grief, the hope that is grief.
I am attempting to give my time and my energy. To the memory of a dog, but more importantly to myself and to my God. To what once was, what might be, what can never be again...
Time and experience are racing by like an un-manned train from an old western. This has been a mind-numbing and heart-wrenching year... My life is beginning to take shape, to truly solidify into something very very real, and it is an incredibly painful process. Losing my friend is really just one more piece of the chaos and desperation I have been living out, perhaps it will be THE piece, the final piece to some great puzzle, that I alone could never solve. Because, for as crazy and demanding, and destructive as my chosen path must be, by it's very nature - my soul, my spiritual journey has no business being so ridiculous, so flighty - not now, not ever!
I'm not sure how Juby plays into this truth, I can't put my finger on it exactly, but she has been so intricately tied to my spiritual connection with God. It sounds silly huh? A little melodramatic perhaps, but she was a gift, a gauge, a presence that was so directly linked to the creator and my place in the creation, her absence is truely a strange, huge, aching hole. But the sadness of loss carries with it also the hope of potential, the possibilities of fulfillment...
The map of my journey is marked with the roads of deceit and selfishness, blind alleys of lost intention and failed do-it-yourself schemes. Evan and I have been divinely protected, a gift we have never deserved, a grace we have never lived up to. We are on the threshold of a great and glorious future, and I refuse to let it happen by default, while I sit afraid and hurting, enchained in my sin and guilt, frozen with disenchantment and failed expectation.
Right now, in these moments, God is demanding so much - he is once and for all requiring our hearts, our minds, and our bodies be given solely to him. He is ganging-up on us, if you will, coming from all angles, all relationships, all experiences, and we are finally beginning to get the picture... It's a struggle, a process, and it hurts... But He. Is. Winning!
My loss, my grief, my pain - I'm so very certain it is all part of the same great happening, a journey which will become my story - God's story in me. I don't know all the connections and pieces just yet, I may never, but I know in my gut, it's God, all God...
Grief does not come alone, if you can get a glimpse past its looming presence, it comes with joy, it certainly comes with hope... Hope for something new, something richer and better.
It's a gift from God, the context for his life work in my heart and my mission! I AM able, I'm not sure I'm ready, but may God prepare my spirit and fuel my drive, may I have grace and passion to become something beautiful. May God take my life for all of time!
I miss my dog, her stinky breath, and silky ears... I miss her following me up and down the stairs and back again, and her piles of stolen shoes... I feel her absence in my house and in my consciousness, but her loss, as was her life, is really so much more then those things, and ultimately that's the point really.
She struggled through the night, none of us slept much, and by morning she was exhausted but finally peaceful again. Evan fed her Pupperoni until she wouldn't eat anymore. We wrapped her in a blanket and she cuddled close to me during her last car ride. She lay contented, with her head in my lap, Evan held both of us, she took a deep breath which ended in one last final sneeze. In true Juby fashion - simple, sweet, and slightly quirky - she was gone.
In response to my dear friend Lyz's post
I think I have to respectfully disagree. Sin in our world has many faces, it is misdeed and thought, it is action against God, and it is also the warped and distorted image of his once perfect creation. This last type of sin-influence is rampant in our biological world, it has many faces – cancer, schizophrenia, and death even. A thing like depression, isn’t God-given, nor is it a perfect state, either is a selfish desire, or polio-stricken limbs, a limited mind, or blindness.
I think some conditions or ‘disorders’ like ADD (maybe types of autism fall here too) may actually be a blessing or a gift in our character and not a consequence of a fallen world at all, but that may be a different topic all together!
The way I see it, things like autism or downs, are not perfect states of being, anymore then a broken arm or diabetes - not because these people have fallen short of a television-induced ideal, but because they reflect God’s injured perfection.
That being said, I think that all people, with all injuries of the flesh or spirit, have a place in our world, they have a role and a voice, they are no more ‘imperfect’ then anyone else - just in their own unique, and generally, more obvious way. It’s this point that I think is the major fault of current society, not that they identify the imperfect qualities of others, but that they don’t see it in themselves. That and the so-called imperfect are lessened and looked upon with pity, shame, and hatred!
We were all made in the image of God, and we were all broken and limited by the entrance of sin. We are all waiting for his promise to heal us, to restore our minds and spirits, make us whole and, at last, perfect as planned.
My two cents, any thoughts?
so, um... I want sushi! Right now! Succulant, cool, wasabied goodness - in my mouth! now! I am not ashamed to admit to you all that this craving was brought on by last night's dream (thanks for the dream pills, mom!) where I gave birth to a baby wrapped in california rolls... yes, that's right - rolls - wrapped up in them like a cuddly baby blanket... and now I want raw fish... go figure!
I am a vet student, married to a computer guy, loving my animals, longing for our future children, seeking God in my life, trying to find my place in the world.