A little bit of bitterness and a little sweetness

So since it's the holidays, it has been a very difficult time for my family. Coming up on our first holiday season without my brother has started to take more of a toll. Especially for my mom and dad. All I want to do for them is fix it. Make their pain go away, make my mom stop crying, my dad stop withdrawing, and my youngest brother get his idol back. But I don't have any of the tools necessary for these great tasks. I want to be  positive but yet it is hard. This is all hard and frankly it just plain sucks. I have to vent for a minute because I want to be real about life. And life right now for me is bitter sweet. There is a lot of bitterness that I have toward my brother's murder, the trial, parts of me that I feel no longer exist, my depression and more frequent panic attacks, the loss of my husband's job, the fact that I can no longer be a SAHM, I miss my babies dearly, I can hardly believe that at 12AM November 30th starts and 10 months have passed since his life was so brutally taken. Taken from us, from his friends, and from his future. I don't know that I have really talked much about who my brother was. But I will tell you a story about what he did to save another's life. He was working in Kentucky after the ice storms in March of 2009. As my brother travelled back toward Leitchfield, he was going south on Mountain Parkway in Winchester when he noticed a car in the ditch on the other side of the highway. He said they look like they need help and got off at the next exit and turned back going east bound to the accident site. The driver, was stuck in the vehicle and the passenger was in shock as he was walking around. My brother noticed the car starting to catch fire. He ran down the embankment and him and another guy, a co-worker, pulled the guy out of the car and as soon as they ran up the hill the car exploded and caught the woods around it on fire as well. A doctor happened to arrive on the scene and the driver had a broken leg and a large head wound. My brother, who passed out from the site of blood when he pulled his first tooth, the one who cannot stand to look at it much rather touch it was given strength to help wipe the blood from his face and hold him down while the doctor reset his leg, right there on the scene. Giving him words of encouragement.  My brother arrived just in time to save that guy that day. Isn't God's timing perfect? This is just one story of the heart my brother had. He tried to find out which hospital the guy was transported to, called around to hospital's to see if he was ok but he was never told any information because he was not family. My brother died never knowing who that guy was or what happened to him. After his death I made it my goal to find the one he saved that March day. It took me 7 months of searching files and archives with very little information. Finally, a breakthrough and I found an article, very small little tidbit from the Winchester Sun about police reports stating a similar accident. I googled one of the guy's name and found he had a myspace account. Well I bravely sent him a message. Yeah, can you imagine that message arriving in  your inbox. I waited and waited for a response and finally got one. He wanted me to thank my brother, the accident changed his life, and he was the passenger. The driver, unfortunately had taken a different turn and I have yet to get in touch with him. I had to tell this guy that the person who so selflessly saved his friend's life was no longer here. Was it my brother's purpose in life to save this guy? Ten months later, my brother died. I still keep in touch with him and it is amazing to see one of the people whom my brother's life changed. The course of events in one another's lives to cross paths at that specific time can only be the work of God. A part of his divine plan.
Ten months have gone by. A long ten months. Kind of like searching through your purse for something you can't find and you get aggrevated and start complaining, frustrated and annoyed. I feel like that. Searching for my brother but can't find him. Well, he isn't there. The one thing I was trying to find has left and I know he is in a far greater place but that doesn't make mine, nor my mom, dad, Will, and the rest of family and friends pain go away. The sting that comes with grief. Grief, what an experience. I didn't think I would have to face it  for many years, yet it took me by surprise one winter morning. It was cold, rainy and I felt like the sky was painted black. I often hear people say 'good grief' but there isn't such a thing. We can only hope that we finish our grieving process healthy and stand strong in our faith in Jesus Christ. The one who died for our sins so we can live eternally. John 3:16 is so often repeated and memorized, maybe even overused by some without even realizing. But in reading Max Lucado's book 3:16 I find the words of "For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." I feel different about that passage having not realizing the truths behind it, more than just words on paper but life filled with love. I am awwed by the writings of Max Lucado. I have read a few of his books and my brother was beginning his book Facing the Giants, a book my mother had given him for Christmas.When the Lord called him home.
Life without him will go on and I will have to learn how to manage the pain but it doesn't mean that it will ever go away.
My sweetness has been found in a promotion at work. I interviewed for it and was anxious and consumed by the outcome but at just the right time, when bills were crunched and things seemed like they were doomed, God pulled through once again! He saved us, he always saves us!
And look at the pictures of my girls below. Now how sweet it is to be given the gift to be their mother.
Thank you God for my gift from you, without them, I wouldn't see the sweetness that this life can still hold. I have hope, faith, mercy, and grace on my side. The strength I have been given is at just the right time. God is never late, his timing is always perfect. It may not be in our timeline but who said we had control over anything. If you think you do, you may want to reevaluate and start again with the things you don't have control over, I bet that list will be a wake up call for there is nothing that God does not control. You must draw your plans in pencil but you have to give God the eraser!~I have had to give him the eraser on many occasions, most of my life has not turned out by my plan. Who's plan are you going to follow is the question?

With sincere love,