Month 5

5 months.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” -Psalm 147:3

I’ve been hesitant to share what God is revealing to me in this season because of timing. Even as believers with all the healing we’ve read and seen God do suddenly, we sometimes give more credit to time than we do the Creator of time and space. Our perspective of time is shaped by our finite flesh, and if we aren’t careful we will try to hold an eternal and omnipotent God to our temporal and feeble calendar.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds. Jesus heals all wounds.

I’m not at the place where I am ready yet to share the details of that day, but 5 months ago my world caved in on me. My mother passed away, and I’ve never known pain quite like what began on that day.

I’ve also never known the grace of God like what began on that day.

Since June 5th, 2017, family, friends, associates, church family, co-workers, clients and even strangers have shown my family and I so much love. My heart overflows with gratitude for every person God uses to call, send a message, share a story, send a donation, drop by or say a prayer. The love is felt.

What blows my mind even more though is how intentional, omniscient, loving and powerful God is.

Last weekend I was in TN, spending some time with my dad. He was keeping busy, and I decided I would finally look through my mother’s jewelry box. I opened the side door and saw some of her favorite Sunday pearls. Memories of Sunday mornings rushed through my mind of her finishing up getting dressed and then asking me to help her pick which earrings and necklace she should wear. There isn’t a woman I know with more style and grace as that of my mother. We would pick her some jewelry while my dad would be reminding us for the countless time, “I need to go. Are yall ready?” Lol.

Pearls, brooches, earrings. So many pretty pieces, a memory tied to each.

I opened the 3rd drawer and there it was.

Some folded sheets of paper. I saw her handwriting and thought it must be some notes from church or a doctor’s visit.

As I unfolded the creased pages and read the 1st line, I felt God’s presence in a way that I never have and never will be able to put into words.

“My Dearest Daughter Brittany,”

It was a letter she had written to me on lined sheets of a hospital notepad that she didn’t get to give me.

Never in a million years did I expect to find her written words to me in that jewelry box on that day. I don’t know if she was planning to share it with me or rewrite it one day, perhaps. Either way, I know it was God’s divine will for me to find it on that day when I was struggling to make sense of His will to take her so soon.

God didn’t say we wouldn’t have wounds. He was wounded, and we are made in His image. His word does promise us though, that He is near and heals the brokenhearted. Even as near as reassuring me by mother’s own written words that she is ok, she is with Him and one day I will see her and share with her again in our glorified bodies, free from disease and pain.

It hasn’t been long, and I am very much still in the process but I’m grateful that God is binding up my wounds.