-You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.
–Psalm 30:11
-Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.
–Psalm 116:7
-When hard pressed I cried to the Lord; He brought me into a spacious place.
–Psalm 118:5
-The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise Him.
–Psalm 28:7
Two years ago, a friend and I visited the Porter Sculpture Garden in Montrose, South Dakota, and there is one piece that forever changed the way I look at grief. It’s a giant hand with a thorn imbedded in the palm and a butterfly perched on the tip of the extended index finger. The artist shared with us, “After the passing of a loved one, I was surprised to discover that pain and joy can coexist, often at the same exact moment.”
I get it now…not in theory but in actual fact.
My mom passed away on January 2nd.
In the past month I have been praying for comfort, for rest, for guidance on how to process this, and truly make sense of it all. The Lord has answered me with memories (like the one above), but also with insights that have jumped out of a moment.
About a week into this journey I was tasked with calling several of my mom’s friends to deliver the news. One of them said to me, “Shelby, I have a hole in my heart now.” and I replied, “We all have a Geri-shaped hole in our hearts today.”
But later, after much thought and even more prayer, I realized…that’s not true. There is no hole. There is a Geri-shaped piece of my heart, filled with my mom’s love for me, and my love for her. And it’s not going anywhere.
In similar fashion, I thought Mom’s death had left a hole in my life. For nine years my days had been an unending progression of mental, emotional, and spiritual rollercoasters, a constant flow of the to-do lists and duties of a daughter and long-distance caregiver. I had the honor, the privilege, to demonstrate my love for her in a new way, to serve her, to return a small portion of what she had given me so generously my entire life. It was the most difficult and beautiful thing I have ever done. Now it had come to an end, and what remained was a crippling and irreplaceable loss, and an unforgivably huge emptiness…a future shrouded in an impenetrable fog.
I stared at it, my soul engulfed in immense sorrow and shock and overwhelm, and I lifted up a two-word prayer…
“Now what?”
An immediate response…
The image of a blank wall.
He knows me so well.
In the summer of 2017 I moved cross country from New Jersey to South Dakota. I was newly retired and divorced. It was about as extreme of a transition as anyone could not have planned. In short order I was standing in my new living room, boxes all around me, bare walls in front of me. I just wanted to snap my fingers and have an instant nest, fully furnished and decorated, in which I could cocoon and freak out for a while. I mean, I wasn’t just looking at the blank canvas of a home, but of an entire life, stripped of a spouse and a career. I needed a sanctuary…stat!
The Lord stayed me with a huge hug. “Slow down. Sit in it for a while. It’s okay to have a blank wall. And if something is meant to go there, exactly the right thing will appear at exactly the right time.”
I am in that place once more.
There is not a hole.
There is space.
It’s okay to have space…in a home…in a life.
For the present, the only thing I need in this space…
is Him.