Among the Thirsty

I wasn't just thirsty, I was bone-dry, arid, and dried up.  My sister had died and I was in such shock that my loving Heavenly Father let it happen.  A million and one ways He could have intervened.  But, He didn't.  It took years of wrestling with Him--trying to let His sovereignty rest on me like a warm blanket instead of rough me up like the coarsest of sandpaper.

He was good to me those days.  Still is.  He was patient.  Still is.  He's a good Father.

Parched, I locked onto a Christian band who called themselves, "Among the Thirsty."  A certain song daily came on the radio, it's words carrying me one step further in the direction of grace and out of the enslaving muck and mire.  The song "I'd Need a Savior" would play and I would sob, knowing that I would need a Savior to get out of the all-consuming grief that had attached itself like a leach.

I found out today that the band is dissolving.

My parents have more than likely sold their home.  After Christmas, they will say goodbye.  They have lived there almost a decade.  I have no childhood memories housed there and I shouldn't care, but in a sense, this home is sacred.  This is the location where my sister breathed her last, where faith became eyes, where Glory was beheld. It is a home that embraced all who would mourn after her death.  This is a home that is definitely set apart from the rest.

But, it is sold and will fade into the distance, carrying the secrets of my sister's last thoughts with it.

Perhaps the hardest part of grief is that it never really dies.  It cycles around, year after year, morphing into new ache, different ache.  There is grace for each cycle, I have no doubt.  The immediate shock and horror was at times overwhelming, but this new cycle cuts as well:  when all that reminded you of your loved one, for good or bad, seems to die as well.  You just want something tangible to remain to point you to who that person was. But, nothing lasts forever.  Mist and dirt, it all leaves just as easily as it came. 

Except, perhaps for eternity.  Eternity has already been set in our hearts.  There is hope for something new, and one day, we will realize the old never really left, after all.