I miss her

It has been almost 3 weeks since my mom joined Jesus in heaven, yet it still feels like yesterday. I am now home and doing my daily duties of being a mom, wife, and minister of the Gospel, yet there is the ache in my heart every day. People will ask how I am doing and I hesitate to tell them. Do they really want to know that I feel like my whole world has been turned upside down and I can hardly get through the next hour without tears of sorrow? Maybe they do, but most of the time my answer is "I am maintaining". What does maintaining look like? It means getting up each morning and going about the duties of my day. It means loving my kids amid the hurt in my heart. It means being a wife to Jerrel when all I really want to do is curl up in my bed and cry.
The Lord has been so good to give me the strength to get up each day. When I was in Bakersfield with my dad we would pray each morning that God would give us strength for today. I continue that prayer now that I am here in Buena Park. So often I have said to others that "God never gives us more than we can't handle". I really believed those words when I said them, until 3 weeks ago. I questioned whether I was going to be able to handle this. I questioned why God would allow the hurt of losing my mom in my life and in the life of so many others. I just plain questioned God! "Why" was an ever present word in my prayer life. I have begun to realize that "why" is not a bad word in our prayer life, but that it is an important step into understanding who God is. If I never questioned God and just accepted Him because of what others had told me, I would never have a clear understanding of his character and how that affects my life. I have used this time to help better understand the character of God and how He is using this hurt to pull me closer to Him rather than push me away from him. My mom has been my rock for so long, that I forgot what Rock I really needed to stand on. Am I saying that God brought my mom home so that I would learn that lesson...NO, but I am learning that the one consistent thing in all of this is God's grace and strength. He gives me strength for today and I am grateful for that. The pain remains and probably will for a very long time, but praise God that he is my ever present help. Praise God that I have the Hope of heaven. Praise God that my dad and sisters know the Rock and can stand on it during this.
I miss her every single minute of my day, yet I stand firm on the truth of who God is in my life. I know the hurt will be here for a very long time, and I trust that God is going to take care of that hurt in his timing.
I leave you with the verse that I am clinging to in all this.
Psalm 18:2
"The Lord is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield,
and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold."

Lisa