As I sit and write this tomorrow I turn 44 years old and it will be the first time in my 44 years that my father will not be here, it will also be the first time in 38 years my baby sister will not be here, both died less than five months apart. My birthdays are always difficult, aging is not for the faint of heart, and I never appreciated my birthday really, the vanity in me is reminded my youth is gone (that and my 12-year-old loves to remind me I am getting old). This birthday I will not have my father calling me up sing the Beatles song “Today is Your birthday, it’s my birthday too” and I will not have my sister to text me about getting “old.” I have to admit it stings just a little or maybe quite a lot.

Each year on my birthday I usually go to the beach to slip away and enjoy some “me time” but this year we were unable to go because my senior in high school was being honored at Senior Night and last year I did not want to be that far from Kiya as she was terminal. So this Labor Day weekend has been gloomy for me while I have enjoyed the sunshine, my heart has been sad, a sadness I cannot shake off, and I have been blooming full force in a gloominess.  I have to admit I have not been easy to live with as I’d like to just fall into a murky pit of ashes and roll around feeling sorry for myself or maybe just allowing myself to feel sorrow…  I think to myself, your sister didn’t live to be this old, you really don’t have the right to not be grateful your alive but still I find myself encrusted in gloom, drenched in an internal warfare of sadness, waves of mourning ebbing in that I was not prepared for.

Then I think to myself why are you whining? You live a blessed life, look at the people out there struggling just to have the basic necessities of life, and you are whining about “feeling” sad… sigh – the internal struggle is real. I think the truth about humanity is we are all struggling with something we keep hidden because it is just too painful to share or confront. We are all trying to fill some void in our life with varies things to no avail. We carry on as if everything is okay and we have it pulled together but the truth is we don’t and we sit in our suffering through silence. I admit I have hidden behind academics and my studies… when I graduate with my doctorate I think, eh… what’ch gonna do chickadee? No place to run after that because I dare not enter into another doctorate program (I may be killed by my family). 🙂

I have learned to center prayer twice a day and I have come to love those times when I can get quiet and still before the Lord. When I first began center prayer two years ago, I tried it kicking and screaming for a class but I quickly began to love it. It is very different than the intercession of the charismatic background I am used too. I have learned to invite God into my emptiness during those prayer times, inviting God into my darkness (yes you read that correct darkness). We have all felt empty and we all dabble with a dark-side no point in pretending to be holier than thou.  God reminds me that I am not to avoid the sorrow or the suffering but to walk into them confronting both the emptiness and the darkness head on. He reminds me I am not empty but full of the Holy Spirit nor does darkness linger within me because His light dwells within each room of my heart and mind, illuminating the shadows that lurk around me. My circumstances may feel over-whelming at times but they will not overwhelm me (insert the He-Man cartoon with the sword as he yells “I have the power!”).

My heart is still heavy with mixed emotion but I know that emotion will not drown me even though it may want too. I know that I will put one foot in front of the other and carry on another year and be more grateful I have the opportunity to honor my sister and my father with the life I have been given, along with all the memories I have of them (some good, some bad but all entangled in our tree of life, deeply rooted within my heart). I have learned to give myself permission (very difficult for me) to feel, to cry, and to mourn all while celebrating… it is certainly what both my father and sister would have wanted.

As I close this blog, I am reminded of a time we were celebrating my middle sister’s birthday, we lived in Rhode Island, it was very cold and snowy… as we reviewed the taped video, right in the middle was Kiya’s little face (about 4yrs old) in front of the camera showing the world her booboo on her eye… Or the time I had my first slumber party bday, watching Ghostbusters and my dad jumping up and screaming, scaring the bajezees out of us girls, popcorn went everywhere… fun memories, sad heart, but feet that keep moving forward. Tis the year of 44 for me…

Psalms 139:14 “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” There is always a reason to worship the Lord in every circumstance in every situation, through every emotion… you were fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God!