I wrote that title You + Me = US because I wanted to show how that how us grievers, no matter what type of loss you have experienced, we are all truly the same. I’ll explain….

Earlier I read about a little girl who fell out of a swing and hurt herself. She cried out for her mother. Her world that she knew, the fun-loving, exciting world of swinging just turned into a painful experience. The world she knew to be secure was shattered because of the pain. As she cried for her mother all she really wanted was the security of the world she knew before – the freedom of swinging.

We are so very much like that little girl. Grieving rocks our world. One day we are living life to the fullest, experiencing the freedom and love only to have it ripped from us like falling from that swing and finding our lives shattered because all that we knew was safe was now unsafe.

Unfamiliar territory so to speak. If you remember in the movie Alice in Wonderland as she spirals down further and further into a world she doesn’t know she becomes disoriented about where she is. That is what it is like to wake one day in a world you do not know. Where the very identity you understood to be true and safe is now gone. And you find yourself wanting it all back. You pray for it to come back. You wish for it to come back. You dream that it will come back. But alas it does not.

There is nothing wrong with wanting that familiar smell of our loved one. Or wanting to be hugged by them again. Whether it is a mother or a daughter or a son or a husband. All of those things that we miss about them we want back. Because those feelings feel good. They make us feel secure. But what we have to realize is that our steadiness, our support, our love and most of all, our emotional stability comes from God.

Once we realize that it is and always has been God who is in control, can we move forward in our journey. That is the security we need to keep us propelling forward. That security has been the very thing that has kept me going. In the early days it was reaching for familiar scripture to give me some assemblence of hope that I could survive. Now it is more than that – it is reaching out to others to tell my story that surviving is just the beginning of a journey that can be so much more than just surviving.

We are all like that little girl who fell from her swing and suffered a loss. The loss of what we knew was safe. We have endured storms, disasters, fears and much much more. But connected with God, establishing our relationship with the Father will help us to feel safe again. It will help us find our identity again. Then in doing so we shall find our world restored. To feel the safety of life. To begin our new journey. That journey my friends is one I can assure you will be so much more than you could possibly imagine if you would just let God do the work.

Until next time,

m