Defining moments.

I was wearing a yellow shirt that I thought was super cute when I stood in a parking lot and got my heart broken. I never spoke to him again. I also got rid of that shirt.

My heart pounding in my ears was the only sound I could hear in the moments before Aaron asked me to marry him. I was all tears and adrenaline for the next half hour.

I was staring at my hands in my lap when my doctor told me we had to deliver the baby that day. I squeezed the Kleenex in my hand and cried and said okay.

Defining moments. It’s so interesting what our hearts and minds latch on to in those moments –the moments where there is a definitive before and after. When the world seems to shift ever so slightly —but just for you. For you, it’s all different. It feels different. For everyone else, it’s just a regular Wednesday.

Nixon and I went to the library yesterday and after roaming the aisles of books back and forth, he noticed the cars driving by on the street outside the window. He toddled over and pressed his hands against the cool, wet glass and watched them pass by. He was wearing a camouflage beanie and a black shirt and I stared at him for a moment before joining him at the window. We watched the cars swish by in the rain and I thought how interesting it was that it seemed like just a regular day – traffic rolling by, the sounds of the library hummed in the background, a man read the newspaper at the table nearby. And yet as they all went on so normally, my life hangs on the edge of a before and after.

My grandma is about to meet Jesus. She’s mere hours from eternity. I hope my grandpa meets her at the gates the very moment she approaches. I hope they immediately sit down to enjoy the presence of Jesus and some dessert. Probably a cup of coffee also.

Meanwhile, here on earth, in this realm, it will feel a little more empty. A little less like normal. An extra reminder that we were not made for this world.

We went to visit her a few days ago. I held her hand and told her it was going to be okay. Told her I loved her and that her pink painted nails looked really pretty. It was a gift to be able to go see her. In these strange times we’re living in, many people don’t get to say goodbye so I’m thankful we had the chance. But it was hard to see her that way. Sick and weak.

“It’s never good. Death is not how it’s supposed to be,” my sister reminded earlier this week. It is an awful thing to watch the human body struggle and finally slip into eternity. But that’s what we’re all doing, essentially, just at different paces. On separate time tables.

I read one time that Americans don’t do well with death or grief. We don’t sit with it like we should so we don’t learn to accept it as a part of life. But I don’t want to accept it as part of life. I don’t think we’re supposed to. I mean, we have to, obviously, in one regard. We cannot outrun it. But this isn’t what it was meant to be. God didn’t create us for death. He created us for life. Everlasting, beautiful, abundant life. And that’s what I have to remind myself when I stand at the kitchen sink peeling carrots and realize my grandma will never do that again. She won’t eat again. She won’t pick out her clothes for the day. She won’t get up from the bed she is laying in. Not here she won’t.

But there. There in Heaven she will dine at the King’s banquet table. She will be dressed in the finest clothes as the Father invites her to his feast. The tears will be wiped from her eyes and her pain won’t even be a memory. It will be no more. She will be whole and healthy and full of life and love. That’s what I have to remember when I start to think about all that will be different when she leaves this body, this life.  

I read a quote from Charles Spurgeon, a Baptist preacher in the 1800’s, that said, “The Christian need not dread sickness, for he has nothing to lose, but everything to gain, by death.” My grandma has everything to gain when she takes her last breath. Everything. I believe it in my bones. It doesn’t make it easier to let her go now. It doesn’t make me hurt less. But I can hurt with hope. At least I want to. At least that’s what I will remind my heart in the coming days.

But it’s hard. And I feel sad and scared and that’s just the honest truth. I know Christians always say stuff like this – that we grieve with hope and that we know we’ll see them again, etc. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel wrecked right now. That I don’t mourn right now. That I don’t feel sad. Because I do. But thankfully, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.” Blessed. Because “They shall be comforted.” And I know this to be true as well. So I will throw myself again and again at the feet of Truth when my heart feels weary of this world as it does now. Because that’s the only thing I know how to do. 

I’m waiting for the phone call. The one where I hear she’s gone home. The anxiety of waiting to know has mounted all week in my heart and in my body physically. I haven’t felt well. It’s the waiting and the not knowing when the world will shift again, for me and my family alone. When it will tip ever so slightly toward eternity again. When there will be a distinct before and after and my mind will hang on to a weird memory of sight or smell or sound and it will all feel less normal.

But maybe it will feel a little more like it should – where we long for eternity and seeing her again. Maybe we’ll long a little more deeply and truly that His kingdom would come and all would be made whole –which is a perfect way to enter this Advent season. The word ‘advent’ is Latin and means ‘coming’. A reminder that we await his coming. Christ is coming. Eternity is coming. And we are longing, hoping, waiting for their arrival. For my family this season, we wait a little more expectantly, knowing who awaits us in glory. I just know she’ll serve us up the best dessert.