Wound Healing

Yesterday was hard.

Not just the usual mundane hard.  The refereeing, the weight of educating 3 kids that are distracted by this Tazmanian Devil that keeps running around, the reciting of Laundry: The Never Ending Story. 

No, yesterday was different. 

Yesterday would have been my sweet Pawpaw's birthday.  The kids and I took a minute to make him a cake. 

 

 

He was wonderful man and if you want to find out more about him you can read here and here.


Rememberance is always bittersweet.

But yesterday was also hard because I took dinner to a recent widower.  Not just any widower.  My brother-in-law's father.  And not just any brother-in-law. 

I wanted a big brother my whole life.  And when I was 16 he was born.  Right into our family that Sunday afternoon when he married my sister.  And he truly is the brother I always wanted.  He makes me laugh and doesn't let me take myself too seriously and isn't afraid to hug me when I need it and isn't afraid to put me in my place when I need it.  He's sensitive when I'm hurting and loves on my kids almost as if he actually loves them. 

And he is an only child.  And his mom died last week.  And I don't know that pain but I hurt all the hurt I know right there with him.  Him and his dad. 

There is something about widows that tears my heart all up.  The loneliness I see in their eyes or the disorientation they feel without having the other half of their heart there with them.  There aren't really words to describe it.  Except that yesterday was hard. 

I visited with Brother's dad yesterday.  Sat a spell.   We talked grandkids and farming and The Love of His Life.  And then I had to leave.  And I wanted to burst into tears.  Having to leave the Hurting to tend to the wounds himself.  And all I had is this:

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

 

That's it.  That's all I had.  This simple unyielding hanging on by the skin of my teeth faith in that He came to heal and care for our lethal heart wounds.  No one else can do that.  So I shut the door and swallowed the big lump in my throat and trusted that I wasn't leaving this widow alone, but just leaving him alone with his Great Physician to do a little wound healing.  Painful, slow surgery on a wound that will mend but always leave a scar.

 

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:4