Held

Tomorrow is the 46th anniversary of my mother's death.  And though I look at that number in terms of the longevity, I no longer feel neurotic for still needing to acknowledge and reflect on my loss.  How soothing it has been for my spirit to come full circle this past week.  To move from churning emotions to a sense of peace.  Not because the grief is gone, but because it is still here--and that's okay.  On this post Eden planet I will never recover from this loss.  How could I?!  Her death was too catastrophic, our mother/daughter relationship too binding to suffer being severed and move forward unscathed.  Her life and her death have irrevocably altered my life and I am strangely at peace with the reality this brings.

Earlier this week, I was given a vision or a picture from God which has been a beautiful healing balm for my soul.  I'm not one to be able to easily visualize something in my mind.  I need something concrete.  And so when I boldly asked God if He would give me a vision of sorts to show me that He was still with me on this journey, I was somewhat skeptical.  But within minutes it was there!

The night my mother died, our family was on our way to church.  The car that hit us was being driven by a drunk driver who 15 minutes earlier had been successful in outrunning the police.  When he hit us, the impact threw everyone from our vehicle except me.  My Dad says that my door often "stuck".  I was left alone in the back seat, confused and afraid.

This picture from God has changed all of that--Jesus climbed into the back seat beside me and lifted me up on to His lap...and held me.  He has been holding me ever since.

Simple but oh so powerful...so comforting and so completely reassuring that He is still holding me after all these years.  The realization that He is the only One who completely understands my loss and this never ending journey has blanketed me with such peace.

Natalie Grant sings a powerful song of lament and praise in "Held".  The refrain sings--

"This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We'd be held."

After 46 years, I am still being held.