The other night I got out my journal I had written in throughout my first year of being a young widow. I have not touched it since my last journal entry I wrote back in 2017. This journal made it though the flood of my home, came with me on every move since then and has always been placed in my nightstand by my bed, yet never re opened. As I recently read through my entries it felt as if I was reading someone else’s deepest thoughts, struggles and heartache. Some details of what I had written I do not even remember happening. It was as if I was reading the details of a sad, fearful and lost woman’s life who didn’t know how she was going to go on.
I have gone back and forth, wrestling with myself about whether or not I should share any of those journal entries here on my blog. Are they too sad? Are they too detailed? Do I really want to relive those early days yet again? I also have to ask myself, who could it help? Could someone out there be looking for someone to relate to? Maybe a young widow/er, a single parent, anyone who feels broken inside like I did?
I am learning it is ok to be vulnerable without needing to always follow through with a deep message for my readers. Yet sharing God’s Word and how His overwhelming grace has saved my life can definitely be exactly what someone needs to hear, other times someone might simply connect with me by just reading about my worries and struggles because they may be experiencing something similar.
Maybe over time I will share different journal entries I wrote as I feel ready. For now, there was one entry, more so even one sentence that caught my attention that I felt was worth sharing for now.
“May 11, 2017
We are on the plane to Washington DC for National Police Week. Seriously?! We have to be there for a week to attend multiple ceremonies that honor Mike. Last week we were in Sacramento for the California memorial. Again… seriously?! Before that was the Chiefs memorial in Monterey. Oh and did I mention the local San Jose ones were scattered in the beginning of May as well. Come on! I think I was numb the whole time in Sac last week or maybe my anti-depressants make me have no emotion. Maybe I have just gone to too many memorials and ceremonies this past year that I am just over all this. You would think that with almost eleven months having passed that I would have filled up numerous journals, yet I don’t even have half the pages of this one filled yet. For some reason it is really hard for me to sit down and write. So hard to relive everything. but I feel like I need to for the boys. They are going to have so many questions one day. I fear that I won’t have the answers. I feel like I fail as a mom daily. Mike would have done such a better job than me of raising the boys alone. It should have been me. I am not sure how I am going to do this by myself. I am responsible for molding our young boys into men, but there is no man in our house. Why God, Why?!”
I had a deep worry, a fear that I was going to absolutely fail our sons. I worried about everything from teaching them how to tie the right knot on a fishing hook to showing them how to be respectful gentlemen and men of God. There was no man in our house to lead them by example. Just a broken, frail, scared mom who had no more left to give.
I read this journal entry late the other evening and I wasn’t alone. I was sitting next to a man in my house. A man that has taught my boys how to tie the right fishing knots on their line and who is teaching them how to be respectful gentlemen and men of God.
I will always question God why for as long as I live and until I meet him face to face and finally get the answer. But what I do not have to question anymore is who is going to help me mold my young boys into men.
My husband on earth is. Their dad on earth is. Little did I know on that plane to DC when my worry was so great I felt I needed to journal it, almost three years later I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. No one can ever replace my husband in heaven and the boys’ dad. David will be the first to tell you that. Yet, instead of replace I see it as stepping in and taking over where Mike left off, which he was doing a damn good job.
The man of our house is doing a damn good job too. I am so thankful I finally opened that journal to be reminded yet again how God has precisely been placing the broken pieces of my heart and my sons’ hearts back together so perfectly.
