Not Over

Some of you don't know me well and when you read this, it may not make much sense. You may know me well and it still may not make much sense.

I went to Duluth this past weekend to perform a wedding. And I was unprepared for my heart to break all over again. Seeing some of the people from what used to be "our" church, made me ache all over again as if I were saying good bye to them again.

It dawned on me that we spent a good chunk of our lives there and it wasn't going to take a mere few months to be healed. We actually spent most of our entire married lives there in the Duluth area digging out the church. We learned a lot, we faced many challenges, trials and became shaped through those experiences.

Even though we know that God made it clear that it was time to move on, apparently the heart still has to process it. I've been in a hurry. I wanted to be able to move on and build a new life here. But I still have a gaping hole that needs mending and healing.

So I'm acknowledging that I'm still sad. It's not really over for me yet. I miss our people. I want to be able to say I'm OK and that this new life is taking over. But it's very much a process and I am still not there yet. Eventually, I will be. But today, I feel like my heart is still there. I don't know how long it will be before I feel like I can really move on. I'm trying.

I think we underestimate our need to really grieve. I think we want to hurry it along. We may even inadvertently hurry others along. We want them to be OK. We want to be OK. But the truth is, I realized after this weekend that it wasn't going to be overnight that I would be able to really grieve the loss, the change and heading into a new direction. And I'm OK with that. I'm not quite finished grieving and though it's been a few months, it's not quite enough time for me to in that place where my eyes don't well up with tears.