Welcome Home, Sweet Home

As you all know, if you've been reading my posts from the last two months, as 2012 came to a close I began to feel very unsettled about the beginning of 2013.  As the clock ticked closer and closer to midnight I wanted to pull away and not have to face the new year.  We all have ups and downs in life and over the last few year I've felt as if there haven't been very many ups. When the down times and trials overwhelm it's so hard to stay encouraged!

No matter how hard I pulled away, 2013 started anyways; and it was pretty rough.  Not even a week into the new year a family- that has been a great blessing to my family and that we've grown close to over the years as friends- went through a very difficult heartache.  It brought to the forefront so many emotions and feelings, that I didn't even realize I'd been ignoring and pushing down, about my dad passing away.  I felt like I was going through all of the pain all over again only this time I was experiencing those emotions and that pain in a way I don't think I even had back in 2002- when my dad's passing was fresh and new to our lives.

Since then it feels like everything has hit me harder from special events that my family has had to decisions I have had to make for my life.  When April rolled around, my dad's birthday month, I became very emotional and the emptiness of him being gone just filled my heart so much that I literally cried day after day.  For those of you who know me pretty well...you know I always have a challenge crying.  I want to and need to cry, but tears never come...very annoying...especially for a girl!  Let's just say I thought and felt like I was going crazy as tears couldn't stop flowing!

My heart aches and my heart grieves, but God never allows anything to happen without a purpose. Experiencing those emotions again has allowed me to focus a lot more on the books I've been writing.  In fact, I've made more progress due to the pain and struggles during the last six months!

 One of the songs that has been on my heart a lot in the last week or so is one that God used to show me that my dad had gone onto heaven.  Here's an excerpt, from a chapter of one of the books I've been working on, that tells how that came about:

"My mom went on the ambulance with my dad, while my siblings and I were left in an empty house.  I called a few people I knew would start a prayer chain and then tried to focus on what should be done next.  For a few minutes, I walked around unsure of where I should even start.  After having so many paramedics and first responder volunteers coming and going the house seemed especially quiet and emptier than it normally did.  That’s when God showed me the first hint that my dad was gone.

I had always wanted to write a song that would be a comfort to someone who lost a family member or friend.  Earlier that year a family we knew lost a little baby girl and God gave me the song I had desired to write.  A song that could give comfort during the loss of a loved one.  Often I would play and sing it at home.  There were times when my dad would be preparing his messages for Sunday and I would stop playing the music as I knew he like it to be quiet so he could concentrate.   Many times he would call out or stick his head out of his office and tell me to “keep playing, don’t stop!”

As I blindly walked through the house from room to room, my eye caught sight of the paper with that song, sitting on the piano.  I stopped and sat on the bench in front of the piano and read through the words.  My heart gripped me and a breath left my lungs as the thought came to me that my father was gone.  

I remembered the knowing look that that the volunteer gave my siblings and me, he had been the first to arrive and one of the last to leave the house, but he couldn’t tell us anything that had happened in my parents room.  Only a doctor could make the call that that someone had passed away.  Instead, as he walked out to his truck he glanced our way with a face filled with sadness as he knew what we didn’t-that my dad was gone. 

But once again, in that moment as I read those words and the realization came that my dad had gone home, I wasn’t filled with fear or terror, but a feeling of peace came over me; a calm knowing that God had a purpose, and would get us through."

God always brings comfort along. Sometimes we have to seek him to find it, other times, when we are at our weakest, he knowingly and faithfully brings just what we need.

Here's the video for Welcome Home, Sweet Home. A song originally written for the comfort of others long before I realized it was truly written for me.