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Monday, January 19, 2009

The Gift of Time

Tonight I am speaking about God's Gift of Time to a writers' group at Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church.

A old saw says, "time heals all wounds." A suicide survivor said, "you never get over it." For me, the truth lies between those two statements.

Saturday marked the 10 month anniversary of the official date of Jolene's death. Mom and I visited all afternoon Saturday without even mentioning it, but we did discuss it yesterday.

Has time healed the wound? In a sense. I no longer have a bleeding, repulsive, infected gaping hole in my broken heart.

Have I gotten over it? Not really. It's true, the amputation has healed. But a scar has formed where Jolene used to be. I will carry that scar to heaven, where it will at last be healed.

Time. A gift for those of us who grieve. God says of the sun and the moon, "let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years" (Genesis 1:14.) God gave me the gift of 2008, and I am very thankful that He planned for the calendar page to turn to 2009. A new year, a new attitude.

Yesterday our pastor urged us to wait on the Lord when we have a mess. I have a number of messy problems. I expect many of you do too. 2009 promises to bring changes to the adult child/aging dynamic with my mother. But God gave me time, and expects me to wait for His answer.

Let me be faithful.

2 comments:

Jan Parrish said...

Great post Darlene. I'm thankful for the new year as well. Turning over the calendar is so refreshing. May the new year bring new life and hope for you.

Have a wonderful meeting tonight. Wish I could be there but I'm pretty sick.

Mary Connealy said...

A new year. A clean slate, though we carry our scars along.