The Empty Chair

It is 13 December, in the year of our LORD 2016. 

My beloved Benjamin, my husband of 26 years and father to our children, stepped from earth into eternity on 2 October 2016 at 8:30 pm.  By the loving grace of the LORD of all creation, I was at his side, holding his hand as he took his very last, long breath.  When he did not take another in, I realized that the reality I'd been ignoring, avoiding, pretending wasn't rushing at me like a freight train had finally arrived in the station -- I became a widow and single mother.

Hospice came to our house and sweetly cleaned him up and dressed him.  The hardest task in the universe was handing his clothes to the nurse and leaving the room.  After he was dressed in the lovely blue shirt I liked, our entire family gathered around him -- including my father and a minister from church -- and we prayed and absorbed the reality that Benjamin was singing with the angels and worshiping at the feet of his Savior while we are left reeling.  

It is 13 December, in the year of our LORD 2016.  We are between Thanksgiving and Christmas; holidays full of family, joy, happiness, and love.  As the world marches ever forward around us, celebrating and joyful, I am locked in some strange timeless fog, struggling to courageously step forward into the new life that the LORD has laid out for me and battling to release the heartbreaking past of Benjamin's devastating illness and the sadness of the days leading up to his death. 

In the aftermath of Benjamin's funeral, I have learned that grief is an strange, volatile emotion.  It casually rides into my day unpredictably like it owns the place, swirls around like a raging tornado wreaking havoc, and then leaves without regard for the damage that's done.  In its wake is my deep, sobbing emotions pouring from the gaping wound grief won't (yet) let heal into a hurt that cannot be described in words. 

But now, over two months later, I have finally reached a point where I can just write this little post on this little blog that's floating in a sea of millions of blogs, all detailing lives, and trials, and celebrations.  And to be able to just write this is one more step of probably millions that will take me forward into whatever tomorrows God has planned for me.

At Benjamin's funeral, which was bizarrely surreal, as I sat looking at his closed coffin at the graveside, I asked the LORD for a sign that my beloved was safely in His loving care.  The wind started to blow gently, causing one of the many yellow roses on Benjamin's coffin to burst into petals that floated here and there and down into the open grave below.  For many days after, I would see yellow butterflies here and there.  

"Rest easy, My child.  I have him.  Lean on Me."

It is exceedingly hard to erase the final weeks of Benjamin's life from my mind's eye.  Many a dark and teary night, as Benjamin restlessly lay in pain in the medical bed next to me, I would cry out to the LORD.  One of the questions I'd often ask was about the promise Jesus made in Matthew 5:4. 

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

I would say, "LORD, what will that look like?  Can You please help me see it when it comes?"  The LORD answered my question -- though it took a while for me to see it -- because the LORD of all creation cares for me.  

Through the loving hands and feet of His children, He has surrounded me with love and hugs, with supportive prayers, with warm, hot meals, with help for the house I neglected for 2 years, with pretty much any need I could envision.  Many of these loving children of the LORD I had never met before.  But they've walked with me -- sometimes for only minutes, sometimes for hours -- and held my hands or shaking body as I sobbed over the reality of loss.  But in every case, they are the LORD's touch in my life, called to help by the very One who created it all.

I have been comforted, just as Jesus promised, by the children of God.  

I still sometimes beg the LORD to tell me why we were chosen for this path, but I know the answer won't be given on this side of eternity.  Benjamin knows, though.  I see through a mirror dimly, but Benjamin sees it all face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).  One day, I too will know.

I can't really end this blog post on a upbeat note.  Upbeat is an uncommon experience for me right now.  The sunny-side-up-glass-half-full gal that I've been for decades is struggling to see the light of today.  I can't open his wallet.  I can't move things around on his computer desk.  I can't go through the box of personal things brought from his office desk.  I can't open his closet in the bedroom.  I can't move his phone.  The pain it too real, too close, and too paralyzing.

But, I know this.  I know that God loves me because God is love (1 John 4:8).  I am assured that He cares for me (1 Peter 5:6-7).  Jesus told us that God would provide for us (Matthew 6:26).  And I know that if I persevere, that Jesus has prepared a place for me (John 14:2).  I trust the LORD to walk with us in Benjamin's absence as Father to the fatherless (Psalm 146:9).

Psalm 103:1-5 NASB

103 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
² Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
³ Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
⁴ Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
⁵ Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

Oh Abba Father how I love You.  You know my grief and You keep my tears in Your bottle.  I know You care for us.  I thank You, Father, that You have comforted our family through the hands and feet of Your children.  I thank You that You are always with me.  I won't hide that I'm concerned for our family's future, but You have already planned it all out.  All I have to do is trust.  I pray that You'd help me with my unbelief and draw me so close to You, that all I have is joy.

Abba Father, I don't know what hurts the readers of this blog may bring when they pause on the internet highway to read, but I pray that You would meet them at their point of need in a very real way.  I pray that You would manifest Yourself in their world, their hurts through the hands and feet of Your loving children.  I pray that You would bring them comfort as You've brought it to me and that Your loving embrace would surround them.

I thank You, Abba Father, that You are trustworthy and true, that You are light and love, that You are hope and grace, that You are mercy and forgiveness, that You are my all in all.  I love You, I praise You.  You are wonderful.  Amen.