February 5, 2019
This is what I wrote on December 13, 2018
“I can’t imagine life without him. I know that people say, “You’ll be all right.” I’m not so sure. I’ve been through a lot of loss in my life. I guess we need to define “all right” then. I would function. I would choose joy. I would “go on.” But my heart would forever (on this earth) be separated from the love of my life, my soul mate, my lover, my best friend. I don’t forget. I am sensitive and would mourn him a long time if not the rest of my life here on earth. I would never stop missing him. I mourn those whom I have lost still so the thought of losing someone most dear to me breaks me. It makes me feel like I am dying on the inside yet am forced to go on. Go on, I would – because I would choose it. It would be the most difficult choice I would be making each and every day to go on with joy without my man. “God please!” I beg and I claim and I pray a million moments a day, “Please heal my man!” That others love my man and are broken by this illness I completely understand. Because I love him more. We are one and that will be forever.”
I stand by those words. Am I ok? Not really. Am I functioning with it being not even a month since I’ve had to let go of Glen? Yes. The first day I was forced out of bed in the afternoon because I had to go to the funeral home and make decisions already. Iona and my boys stayed the night with me. I didn’t sleep much. Eating was almost non-existent for a few weeks. I tried. I knew I was hungry but I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat. I was losing weight and didn’t care. I knew it would come back eventually. I’ve been down the path of grief before quite a few times but this…this was worse. I’ve lost me. I woke up a few days into the grief and looked at my suddenly too long fingernails and the thought that came to me was quick and involuntary. “How can fingernails grow when I’m dead?”
Yes, it sounds ridiculous but I was feeling that I had died. Glen died physically and is very much alive. I just died. I was numb with deadness and felt I must be dead. That was my spirit that was completely devastated. I don’t feel dead much anymore…but sometimes it creeps back up. I have begun choosing joy again on a daily basis, which doesn’t mean I’m healed and ok. It means the years of habit are a good thing and I am choosing to think right. I know that the Lord is shielding me from even bigger pain than I am even feeling. He has told me this. He has told me that this loss for me is even bigger and more devastating than I know and that He is shielding me. I would hate to feel if He were not shielding me as this is bad enough.
At the burial I knelt beside Glen’s coffin with my hands on it, my head in my hands and wept bitterly. What I saw very clearly was Glen weeping too and Jesus wiping away his tears as it says in Isaiah 25:8; Revelation 7:17; Revelation 21:4. Glen also mourns me and our boys. Somehow that brings comfort…
A friend sent me these words recently as she is sending me a word every day that she hears from the Lord for me…
“VIOLENCE. Lamentations 3. I see you were as a Lion with Glen. Two people but your appearance was a Lion. You were like one being. You were violently attacked and Glen ripped from your body. It’s like I watched a kill. You are now feeling left with half of your body. As though Glen being ripped from you in such a terrible way, has left you with one arm, one leg, one eye. You have been violently robbed from a tremendous tearing away of your body.
“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.”
“I want to say to you Laurel to rest to heal but what I’m seeing is not that right now. I see you rising up in a VIOLENT way, like taking the kingdom, your kingdom, your body…by force. Your energy is way better spent by fighting for yourself to be healed and restored, rather than expend energy in asking why, what if, what should I have done, what’s going to happen to me…etc.
Take back what’s yours in a VIOLENT way. That might be as simple as managing your own thoughts. God is still your Defender and yes JESUS has already fought and won the victory for you. But in your present reality you have to also fight for yourself. Be your own best friend and slam the door on the enemy’s face. You can hurt him by resisting.
You will one day feel whole again, it will come. The bleeding won’t last forever, your bones will function. We don’t like to talk about that side of God but He is a violent God. For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though He cause grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love; for He does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men. Lamentations 3:22
And another word for you…KIND. Please be kind to yourself. Give yourself a break, lavish yourself with love. Nurse your shredded body and VIOLENTLY take back what is yours to own. Your own self. You are worth fighting for. And you are not alone. Many of us are standing with you, even when it doesn’t feel like it and you don’t see it. Angels also are standing with you and fighting for you. Your fight is in the resistance of your thoughts.” S
That is exactly how it feels. Glen and I had a rare love story, though I do know there are others out there too. I think we had an argument or two but it wasn’t about anything more than me having low blood sugar or me worrying about him when he had long trucking days and we didn’t have cell phones…that hardly counts! We were in unison with each other. We could stare at each other across a crowded room and “know” where the other was at. We knew each other intimately and passionately in every way. Our love grew for each other daily. Perhaps I am romanticizing it more now as I remember but I don’t think so for I remember feeling and thinking it then too. In fact I wrote in my journal about our love and our story. We have had numerous people comment on our incredible love, our incredible story. I am so very thankful for the love we had and will continue to have one day in heaven, whatever that looks like.
I do still feel one in spirit with Glen and of course with Jesus, but that the robbery of Glen from me was absolutely violently ripping him from my very body leaving me bleeding and in massive shock is absolutely true. I will heal and am healing but it takes time. What God has joined together let no man tear asunder…I think I hear God saying that we are still partners, still one with much to do. We are working on the same thing though. I’m working here on earth and Glen is working in heaven. Then finally, we will be together again, working together as one. It just looks different now. It’s very hard to accept that reality… I still don’t like the plan. I still choose the joy of the Lord as my strength. I choose to glorify God and be thankful.