Last year I asked Brenda to share an entry she had made in her personal journal. Thankfully she was courageous and vulnerable and shared how she felt when she found David’s stocking at the bottom of one of our Christmas boxes. I wept the first time I read it and I wept again as I read it this week. I know there are many of us who struggle during this time of the year. I hope, like Brenda, you will be bold and vulnerable enough to share how you are feeling with someone who loves and cares for you. Be bold!
Thank you, Brenda, for your powerful words, faith, and love!
The Stocking
Putting away our Christmas decorations I found this. David’s stocking. (We named him David after the shepherd boy David who was a man after God’s heart.)
Seeing this…his name, his Nana’s handiwork stuffed with goodies for years…now empty and sitting in the bottom of a box brought a momentary sick feeling, sadness, longing, then hope. In a nanosecond, my mind and emotions were sent down memory lane…like a powerful vortex sucking me back in time.
Traditions help create memories, memories bring reminders of what we have and no longer have; of what was and what could’ve been. A reminder that life is so fleeting, to cherish every moment, to not be so consumed with the things of this world that we overlook the bigger picture.
No one can be fully prepared to lose a child or a precious loved one. Yet the truth is that every one of us will leave this earth. So how do we navigate life when it’s filled with grief and heartache?
We remember
We cry
We feel
We share
We hope
We know
We believe
We trust
We persevere
We continue
We live
We serve
We worship
We release
We risk
We listen
We give
We love
One second, one minute, one day at a time.
