A New Normal....

I do not have the exact words to express what our family has been through over the past month.  We lost our young, beautiful, kind hearted, always smiling, cousin Chrissy, after a courageous battle with breast cancer.  She was  a wonderful wife, mother, daughter, "aunt" to my children and "sister" to me.  Chrissy was my first morning phone call and my last "Good Night" text after a busy day of doing the stay-at-home mom things that we stay-at-home moms do.  You know, the cooking, cleaning, taxi-drivers of the world that help with homework, balance the check book, kiss the bruises and wipe the tears.  Our lives have been changed forever and we now have the daunting task of trying to develop a "New Normal." The "Normal" as we knew it has been taken from us and trying to come up with the answers to "Why?" has been unrelenting.  My own faith felt shaken by this tragedy that has devastated my family...  As I stood at Chrissy's graveside today, looking up toward heaven asking God..."Where are you in all of this?" I felt so broken and alone.  I have been searching for comfort in this storm of grief.  A passage in a book that I have been reading spoke to me clear as day: A quote from Choosing to See, by Marybeth Chapman, "As I took a walk on the beach, I cried out to God.  How?"...  Here is what I heard....  How? By remembering that I am God and your trust has to rely completely on Me...  no striving of your own will to fix, heal, cure, help, calm any of what you see as a mess. I allow what I allow for reasons you can't even comprehend... rest.. you won't figure this out."  That passage spoke to me.  Focusing on the why's and the how's is not part of God's plan for us.  There are situations that God allows to happen in our lives that we will never be able to understand.  My family's heart is broken.  It is so easy for us to get washed away in the "Why's" we must instead trust God and hold on to the promise that we will be with Chrissy again some day.  Thus the undaunting task of creating a "New Normal" in our world that will never be the same without her.