I fancy myself a writer. I write out incidents and happy moments in my life and the life of my family. I email them to other family members and share them with my friends. They tell me they love my stories and to keep them coming. I print them out and save them in plastic sleeves in a notebook. One day I hope to really write a book and maybe have it published. My daughter in law has even picked out a name for the book. It will be called “ From the back porch”.
To give you a glimpse of my personality I love to write, sew, garden, and be around people. I am a hugger and a kisser. I am one of those people that are very physical and it’s common for me to touch people when I am just talking to them. It’s just how I am. I am not shy about telling my friends and family that I love them. Even if some of them are shy about telling me they love me, it’s okay. I want them to know that I love them. Sunshine is one of my favorite things, but cloudy days make me down. Especially too many of them in a row. There are to many wonderful things in life to experience and 'today is the first day of the rest of your life' means a lot to me. I am generally pin pointed as a really happy person to be around. I care about other people. I care if they are happy or not. If they are not, what can I do to make a happy moment in there day? A hug always helps along with a big smile!
However, there has been sorrow in our family. Everyone has sorrow that shows up in there lives. But this was a sorrow that was not expected. This was a series of events that happened and it tore apart many hearts. These events seemed to never stop and it was an on going saga that seemed to have no ending.
The writing stopped. The sewing stopped and the garden and yard seemed to take on a dreary quality. The wonderful things in life that I felt I experienced every day seemed to slowly dwindle away. I didn’t care if the sun was shining or if it was cloudy and rainy. A dreary day suited my mood just fine. Where was the joy in my life? Where was the love that I saw when I looked into my loved ones faces. I lost it some where along the way. I was afraid I would never find it again.
My friends at work skirted around me. Anything we talked about led me to my sorrow and the happenings in my life, and I cried. I cried everyday and I cried at every episode I could find to cry about. The sorrow consumed me and every aspect of my life. I didn’t want to be around myself and there were thoughts of just exiting from this world and leaving it all behind. Then I would not have to deal with it, think about it, or live it.
It so happens that I have a friend (who is an angel in disguise) that thought differently. She has sorrow in her life also. Our combined sorrow brought us together, as strange as it would seem. She was bold about dealing with her sorrow. She functioned everyday in a way that I could not comprehend. And one day she says to me, "You should try going to church. It will really help you. I know, I have been there and I feel your pain." She was right about feeling my pain. Our sorrow was quite similar. The incidents were almost parallel with each other. She did come to work every day and not erupt in tears all the time. She still smiled and was happy about things in life. And she befriended ME and comforted ME when she lived with sorrow too. How could she have the energy and capacity to comfort ME? I was consumed with my sorrow and caring about other people was very difficult for me at this time. Making someone smile or offering them a hug when they needed it was avoided. It would make me cry to have to offer any happiness to someone else. Life had turned into a day to day drudgery. The sun stopped shining and life was full of storms. I accepted her advice and said I would think about it.
Why is it that we let sorrow drag on for so long? For days, even weeks, and in my case, I let it drag on for months. Mistakes at work could not go over looked forever. Any happiness between my husband and I was slipping away. His sorrow and my sorrow combined was making us drift apart. We pretty much stopped talking, and closeness was slipping away. Conversations were only about dealing with these incidents, and what was the latest happenings and the sorrowful saga goes on.
When another friend at work yelled at me to just turn my back on the situation and leave it behind because every one was sick of seeing me crying all the time I realized I had to do something. I would not want to be my friend either. I would avoid being around me if I could. What a miserable person I had become. I took up calling my mother on a frequent bases. She worried about me a lot. She worried about the situation a lot too. She said you need to get to church. You need this in your life. You should try it and see if it makes a difference in your life. It will help you get through what you are going through.
I took up the offer from my friend who is the angel in disguise. I decided that I could not do this any longer. And especially, that I could not do this on my own. I knew exactly Whom I needed to get me through this. My husband and I were having a bit of a spat and the conversation ended by me telling him that I was going to start going to church and that he was going with me. He agreed right away. That was easy enough. Seems we were on the same sorrow page all along.
One of his friends at work suggested a church but I told him that I had already agreed to attend church with my angel friend. Sunday rolls around and we meet my angel out front and take a seat in the church. The music begins and I am wowed by this alone. This was not the kind of music I remember in church when I was a kid. The songs were modern, electric guitars, drums, singers. It was like a band instead of a choir. No robes, just everyone in what ever they wore to church that day. Jeans, t-shirts, dresses, slacks. They were who they were, and it was all good. We were standing and I noticed people clapping while they were singing. I noticed older people, younger people, and teenagers. They were all enjoying the music. They were dressed to be who they were and it was okay. As I listened to the words of the songs I started crying. Not tears of sorrow but tears of comfort. How did they know what I needed to hear? How did they just speak to my heart like that? Why isn’t everyone else crying from the joy of this beautiful sound with words of real life coming from these singers mouths?
The sermon begins and the pastor again is speaking to me and me alone. Well, maybe he is speaking to my husband too, since we share the same sorrow. Okay, so I enjoyed it totally! On the way home we talk about it and decide there is no reason to try out another church. This one was everything we were looking for long ago when we tried to search out a church that fit our needs.
For months I cried in church. The music made me cry. It touched my heart. I wondered when I would be able to attend church without tears flowing down my cheeks? The pastor’s personality is funny, full of life, full of fire when he spoke about Jesus and how much he loved each and every one of us. How sorrow just shows up and that as Christians we had the means to handle it through God’s Word. He said when you are going through Hell, don’t stop and sit down. Keep going as fast as you can to get to the other side.
At work one day the sorrow slipped attacked me again in an over whelming incident. The tears came and I could not stop. A supervisor took me into another room and closed the door. He looked me straight in the eye and told me, you can’t go to church with one foot in the door and one foot out. He stood there with an imaginary line on the floor representing a threshhold. One foot was on one side of it and one foot was on the other side of it. He picked up the foot on the other side of the door and firmly planted it beside the other foot. If you don’t get both feet firmly planted on this side of the door it isn’t going to work. I nodded and he hugged me and said now wipe your eyes and put a smile on your face. I decided to take his advice. I thanked him many times for those words of wisdom as the days, weeks, and even months passed by.
Slowly we began to get to know the other church members. They welcomed us with open arms. They really cared about us and about one another. I began to see changes in my heart. I began to see changes in my life. Sunday became my favorite day of the week. I couldn’t wait to get to church and sing and clap my hands. I couldn’t wait to hear what God had in store for me that day. It became MY church. My co-workers saw a change in me. My friends saw a change in me. My family saw a change in me. My smile returned, the hugs and kisses went out in more abundance that before! I was able to comfort others when they were having a bad day.
Our children could see the difference in our lives. Our oldest son and daughter in law started going to church. Our other two sons hesitated. They were part of the great sorrow that consumed our life for so long. But there was hope. There is always hope. For sorrow breeds hope.
As time moves on our example reflects upon our faith. Our other sons sit up and take notice. Our second son is now going to church and is making it possible for our grandson to know God. God is working in there lives as well. Prayers are answered. And God is good……. All the time!
I am writing again. I am sewing again, I am working in the yard again, and it is thriving. I am able to comfort others and offer words of love and hope to them. I can tell them how God sent great sorrow into my life only for me to seek Him out and turn all that emptiness into joy. Sunday is not the only day of the week I look forward to now. Every day is a day that the Lord gives me, and I do all I can to take great pleasure in it.
I hardly cry in church now. Just occasionally when I get consumed with the thought of how much God loves ME. That He forgives me for not being perfect and that His love for me will never change. And that He will get me through anything that sits itself in front of me as a stumbling block. Sometimes I cry when they are singing a particular song that touches my heart. But it is never tears of sorrow. Only tears of joy.
They say that God is contagious. He is! I wish he was more contagious and that I could spread it around a lot faster and a lot more plentiful, but there are others who will have their sorrow to go through. God knows what he is doing. He will bring them to it and he will bring them through it. As long as they don’t sit in Hell while they are passing through it!
I am thankful to all of God’s shepherds who are tending his flock. I was once a lost sheep, but now I am found. I was once blind to the goodness of God, but know I see. I was once deaf to hear his love for me, but now my ears hear the beautiful song of his never ending love. God’s amazing Grace still amazes me. The storms of life are always there. No one is exempt from them. They might make your skies dark but God’s love is bright. I hope to be a worthy shepherd for God. I wish to share my happiness at finding a love so powerful that it outshines any darkness.
For with joy comes sorrow, and with sorrow comes hope, and hope will bring you joy!
