Hands Full

Something dawned on me this week …

I had both hands full … very full, weighted, heavy!

I’m mesmerized by the way our heart and mind works. I can’t really understand it, but I know it to be true.

My hands and heart were full of JOY … The joy of three children and spouses I love with all my heart. Full of three grand babes whose faces invade me with joy and love just from a picture. Their smiles, coos and sentiments mingle into cracks and crevices, giving even the hurting places glimmers of light. Full of three older grands who share my heart. Full of extended family. Full of God’s goodness and blessings, His provisions, care, generosity and love.

At the very same time, my heart is full of SADNESS and LOSS … The loss of family members: irreplaceable and loved. Losing my mother and my first Mother’s Day without her voice on the phone or presence: her love, encouragement and friendship. A huge life shift for myself and my husband who has no living parents. Mother’s Day week seems to magnify all of them! As well as other grief and losses.

There I stand holding the two extremes of life!

Why don’t the joys erase the grief?

Why doesn’t the grief drown the joys?

It seems they would somehow. It seems one would outweigh the other, but I carry them simultaneously. One doesn’t disappear due to the other. They coexist, filling my hands and heart.

If I made two lists of my lifelong joys and sorrows, I’m fairly confident the joys would win. But a word on a page doesn’t hold weight. A simple number doesn’t portray depth. So lists can not measure this.

I know in the grand scheme of life God’s deep, abiding, unconditional, saving love arches over all and reigns supreme. But in this human world, the dichotomy still exists in my heart and mind. God doesn’t erase our humanness; He made it! He loves his creations in it and through it!

He walks WITH me, recognizing my full hands; joy and sorrow! 

Jesus felt the same extremes when He walked in humanness. He didn’t erase one for the other. He didn’t deny one for the other. He held them both just like me. Heavy heart, full hands, loads of love/joy around him, bitter grief.

Maybe your hands are or have been full this week. 

Joys do not cancel sorrows! Sorrows do not nullify joy!

I’d rather not compare them because each is part of my life!

I prefer to acknowledge both, even though it can be painful. I’m not healthy if I push them back, ignore them, or pretend they don’t exist. I’m better when I walk through them in God’s presence and grace. Living where I’m at and letting God work.

My hands are heavy, my heart is full … I can’t deny any of it!

It’s not easy, but true!

These thoughts kept flashing through my mind this week. I understand, if you are like me!

Full,

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