Do not fear

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10

Today felt like black Friday. Cold, dark, desolate, hopeless.   I woke up with one sentence in my head. “He slipped through my fingers.” I tried to shake it off but I found myself slogging through my morning with that phrase running repeating over and over and over…

I had read it somewhere the night before.  It just was so heavy on my heart, that visualization of a priceless precious diamond, so rare it could be found no where else in the world, one of a kind- slipping out of my fingers into the depths of the ocean.

Except that diamond was a person, far more valuable than any object the world over, absolutely irreplaceable, and not just at the depths of the ocean.  If that were true I would search relentlessly, never ever stopping.

I felt lost and empty. Regretful. Hopeless.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

At one point I took a took a workout shirt of his that had just been hanging around that I kept throwing here and there hoping not to look at it- and I ventured downstairs.  To where his room is.  I have not looked in its direction nor ventured into it since the day of celebration of life.  I still do not know how I went down there to write the speech I had written that day.

His room is around the corner in the basement so I don’t have to see it unless I…walk around that corner.  I for some reason almost dared myself to do it, just approach the open door to throw the shirt it.  So I did.  The result was immediate scorching pain like a hot branding iron on my heart. To see the bed that had sat empty for nearly three months. That emptiness, that void that echoed my heart.  I ran upstairs sobbing.

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

I know God is there.  I know it.  I believe it with my whole being.  I know he is there when I don’t think I can feel him.  Today I felt an absence, a “why couldn’t you save my precious diamond?”  I truly felt robbed.  I felt feelings that I haven’t completely acknowledged before.  It was a terrible, terrible feeling.

Tomorrow is another day.  Another day that God will be there to wrap me in his blanket of mercy if I will let him.  He has NEVER left and will NEVER leave.

My Sunday is coming…someday I will join my diamond. The bonds of death have been broken. He is risen.

Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Revelation 22: 12-13