Interestingly, looking at my calendar yesterday, I see that it was Wednesday last week that my sister had fallen, and had been taken to the hospital. She was taken off life support on Saturday afternoon. It all happened so fast, it seemed like it was an overnight 'thing'. I had numbly walked through the day(s) that family was not allowed to visit her. When she was on dialysis. It all was lumped together from when my brother was there the first day, to when he was finally allowed to go see her again, and then he and my little sister were able to go back, tell her that they loved her, and let her go. Wednesday to Saturday. She was here, and then she was gone. My grief has been bearable, shedding my tears when I could be alone. I was unable to keep tears from falling during worship yesterday as we sang the song about 'turning our mourning into dancing'. I think it may be a little while before my sorrow lessens and I can once again be joyful admidst the sorrow. But it will happen, of that I am confident. It is still just the shock of it all.
Psalm 30:11 (NKJV): "You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothe me with gladness."
It is Monday and I'm back to work. Oh yeah, it's timecard Monday so I will be kept busy for a little while. I'm actually getting pretty good at doing timecards now. Last pay period, because of the memorial day holiday, I had asked everyone to approve their timecards on that Friday before - I didn't even have to get on the computer as I had them all approved. When I started checking on Friday, I noticed several had already gone ahead and approved their timecards - so I then approved them at the next level. I maybe have 6-8 left that need approved.
I told my bosses briefly last Friday about my sister being in the hospital, and Saturday I had let my friend/boss know. I haven't told my other boss yet, but will this morning. I appreciate their sympathy, but I sometimes am uncomfortable with the attention, if you understand what I'm saying. The "I'm sorry for your loss" is sufficient, and when I know more, I'll make plans to fly back to help and for the funeral. It still is so surreal. I have to deal with my grief in my own way. I'm grateful I did call her on Tuesday and we ended the call with 'I love you'. But what happened after that, I can't imagine.
Tonight we will have our church group meet. They don't know yet about my loss, and I will probably ask the group to pray for my family as we go through all the details and finalize everything. But our leader asked hubby for us to come a bit earlier tonight. During our last meeting, the leader had said something that I hadn't heard before and I had interrupted him with 'Where did you read that?!" It was about the child sacrifices to Molech... I had read it was mandated couples had to give up their babies to 'be passed through the fire and sacrificed to Molech', and he made a comment that because of the sexual promiscuity of the people and babies being born, it was for population control of sort.... women who had babies had to nurse and that kept them from ... well, let's just say I may have it all wrong, but it threw me for a loop. The leader saw the shocked look on my face and wants to discuss it with me and share where he got that from. Now mind you, this man has done a lot of studying of the Bible and schooling and all... he even took three years of Greek so that he could read the Greek Bible! I'm sure he knows what he is talking about - and I definitely haven't done any deep studying like that. It will be interesting to hear where all that came from, but being a woman, it tore at my heart when he said that last week. I could never give up any of my children.
Yet, as I wrote that last sentence, I am reminded of the sacrifice God, our Heavenly Father, made for us by sacrificing His very own beloved son. And for such a brutal death as well. But He loved - and loves - us so much, He willingly did it.
John 3:16 (NKJV): "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
Could there be any greater love than giving up your one and only child for others? Somewhat hard to comprehend, isn't it? But God did. For you, and for me. Something to think about.
Blessings!
