Round Two: Tears are Good

We spent another weekend in San Diego. Celebrating Mother's Day with an intense session of grieving may sound odd but it was a really good way to spend the morning. The remainder of the weekend was uneventful in an ideal way. The zoo was huge and a little overwhelming (for me, not Wyatt) but the gorillas, polar bears and elephants were fascinating. When I ask Wyatt about his favorite part of the zoo, without fail he answers, "Macaws too loud." I had a perfect bowl of Pho at a Yelp-recommended Vietnamese restaurant near our hotel and Wyatt discovered a love of egg rolls.
To prepare for Sunday, I read Crabb's Shattered Dreams, mediated on Psalm 62 and 63, and thought back to age 15 and wrote a list of everything that I was angry about and what I lost. I think the meditating meant the most, as God is helping me learn how to be more honest. In what can only be described as mystery, Sheryl opened up our time together with Psalm 63, though she had no idea that was the passage that God led me to during our six weeks apart. God led her to the same passage that morning. I struggle to acknowledge these moments in life as divine and would usually rather chalk them up to coincidence but it was a surprising confirmation that God is in the middle of this grieving process.
We spent a considerable amount of time talking about things I've lost. I hate even typing "things I've lost" because it feels so final and depressing. If I hate typing it, you can imagine how I feel about sitting with these things for any length of time. I desperately want to push fast forward and get on with it. Yet I'm clinging to what I remember about my life before I got sick.
Grieving is messy and that's probably the hardest part of the process. I'm messy and unpredictable...which is code for not in control. As God opens these deep crevasses in my soul, I am flooded with a new range of feelings on nearly every subject. There is a rawness to me right now that is uncomfortable.
As messy as it is and as many tears as I'm crying, I'm thankful that God is meeting and loving me. My hope is that His presence and love will be what my heart craves. For now, I'm still wrestling with my natural-but-too-important desire for good health and a quick, easy path, and I'm learning to be patient in the waiting.