I am still feeling a little bit numb from the events of this past Friday.
In a town only about an hour from here 20 kids were senselessly murdered.
It hit home in an incredibly powerful way for my husband and I.
We spent so much of Friday afternoon & evening crying and just starring at each other.
We hugged our kids extra. We kissed them. Even if they didn't want us to.
There was a pain in my chest that i have not felt since I had to hand Cali over to the OR staff on 2/11/2009. It was the only way I could describe what I was feeling to my husband.
We very purposefully kept the tv off and just read the news online. We had no strenght for the images. I don't want to sound like I am making this about me. But in sharing what I felt/feel serves a purpose. If I am feeling this low about it all, how must those poor people in Newton feel. It is overwhelming to me to think about them.
Just 2 days later it would be the third Sunday of Advent and we would be focusing on Joy. JOY?!?!? How do you talk and celebrate Joy when we have just witness this heinous crime? How do you smile and think about all the good stuff when the pain for so many is so real and vivid and so much more intense and permanent than mine? The kicker in all this is that I had to present the children's sermon at church. JOY. What?!?! I had a few things planned ~ talking a bit about things that don't bring people Joy. (Traffic at the mall, burned cookies, and other simple things for little ones to relate too.) But the reality became there was no way I could get up in front of church and talk about all the little things that take away from the Joy of Christmas and then just say look for Joy in everything. I talked about it with my husband and with my dear friends. I jotted down a few notes. I am a crier. I shed tears at the drop of a hat and less! How do I do this? God help me. I can say that God truly spoke through me at church Sunday morning. I can also say I really felt the Spirit guiding my words.
As a preface I said something about it being hard to find Joy when we just want to be sad. I started my message with talking about things that make us happy and how happy is different from Joy. Things that make me happy ~ sending Christmas cards & cooking for people.
Things that bring JOY!
1. A Snow day
2. Presents on Christmas Morning
3. Cassie going to One Direction world
4. Ben's eyes when he pranks someone
5. A bride & groom who see each other for the first time
6. Dr. Marans telling us he would see Cali in 2 years.
Just a few things I thought about. A short list.
I also told the kids that I believe we feel this Joy way deep down inside of us in the depths of our heart because that's where Jesus is. He is in our hearts and He is the source of our Joy. I challenged these kids to find Joy in times of sadness. So I cried and made a few other people cry along the way but you know what there was Joy in sharing with people I love!
