Next week will be six months and that has me rattled. 6 months without him. Half the year. How did we get here? How have I lived for half a year in an existence I couldn't have imagined?
The Earth seems to keep spinning and time marches on but I don't want to leave him behind. It's a very foreign push and pull. I have a goer, achiever personality that wants to be moving, taking action, with an onward mentality all the time. Yet I feel like I'm tugging on time wanting to stay where I was. Wanting us to stay put and be who we were before.
That's the other tug--am I the same? How can we be the same people we knew and still be changed and affected by Scott's impact on our lives. There's a rub, a discomfort, that I can't explain.
I read recently that manna, like what God provided in the wilderness, can literally translate as "What is it?". For some reason, this resonates so deeply with me. God is providing, He is dropping sustenance from the sky, but they look at it and wonder "what the heck is this God?" They eat it. It fills. But it is unfamiliar. Maybe doesn't taste great. Or just doesn't taste like something they've ever tasted before. But it meets the needs and fills the bellies.
I know God is providing for us. I know He is present and has been along these 6 months. There have been moments where that has even tasted good. Where we have laughed and remembered well. Where I can hang out in gratefulness and the overwhelming fill of how fortunate we are to have been the closest people to Scott Sterling. But there have also been a lot of hard moments where I stood staring out at the ocean--this great creation--and wondered if the Creator had left me. Wondered if he cared or had a plan at all. "What is it?--What are you doing here God? Are you sure you didn't get it wrong?"--these are sometimes the words that roll quickest off my tongue.
I have found on the hardest days, the Enemy seems to talk loudest and he is always lurking. He seems to be waiting right outside for me to slip up or have a doubt so he can swoop right in and wreak havoc. You have to recognize that he's the opponent when he is the kind that kicks you when you're down. He lies. He deceives. He worms his way around what God says and convinces you that God can't possibly have your best interest at heart. There are days when I literally have to say outloud what I know to be true. Truth with a capital T. I will cry out that He never leaves me or forsakes me. That He calls me by name. That He has ordained my days. And if He has ordained my days, he's ordained my kid's days too. And while our circumstance doesn't change, Truth beats the lies in that moment. Light always overtakes darkness.
So as the Earth keeps on spinning like he does. And it can be overwhelming that time is getting away from us. One of the best ways I know to remember and honor Scott is in the God that he pointed us to. That while we miss him in every aspect of our life, that he was pointing us toward how to live this life on purpose and be intentional with our time, even as it marches on. If my, now seemingly so short time with Scott was a gift, and it was the greatest gift, then the time now and manna that comes is a gift too. I have to figure out what this new provision means and how to best use it. I refuse to let this story be wasted on me. There was just too much good in my years with Scott to not carry on more of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment