A difficult step into reality

I went to work today.  It was totally by choice, but I went.  I needed to.  After 5 days of sitting in an ICU, feeling every emotion possible (sometimes all at once), I needed to do something that resembled normalcy.  I took my daughter to daycare.  I dropped my son off at Grandma and Grandpa's (Daddy used to take him to school.)  I drove to work.  I was acutely aware the entire drive that this was the same as every other day, but it wasn't.  I wasn't.  Last time I was at work, I wasn't wearing my husband's wedding band on my left middle finger.  I didn't feel like I was walking under water, only partially able to take a breath.  I didn't worry that every time I opened my mouth, instead of words, only tears would spill out.  I didn't dread the inevitable, unknowing child who asked me where I was all last week.  For the first time in my career, maybe, I had no idea how I was going to make it through a day.

I left my job of 15 years in June.  The entire 15 years, I taught middle school.  Through a series of circumstances, I began to see that I needed to make a transition.  I was burning out.  So, when the opportunity came to teach in an elementary school in a different district, I took it.  I distinctly remember, when I was offered my current job, God spoke to me, saying "How much do you trust me?"  In that moment, I interpreted that trust to be around leaving a job I knew, people I loved, tenure, security, familiarity.  Like I've said before, God has been preparing me at least my entire marriage, if not my entire life, for this moment where I now face life as a young(ish) widow.  He knew I couldn't handle teaching middle school, and grief.  He knew I was going to need a schedule more conducive to my son's.  He knew I needed a smaller setting with smaller groups of students.  He knew I would need the love of both my previous school and my current school.  He knew.  I didn't know, but God knew.

I've received a lot of hugs over the last 10 days.  A lot.  The comment I receive over and over again centers around how strong I am (or at least appear to be.)  Let me say this right now: I'm not strong.  I'm in shock.  I'm numb.  I'm in disbelief.  I am a hyper-organized over-achiever who responds to intensely stressful situations by throwing herself into action.  In the midst of this action, I get swallowed by tsunamis of feelings, some I can work through, and others I have to sit and cry through.  And this will go on for a long time.  What people see as strength is God's strength.  What people see as composure is, frankly, raw shock and disbelief.  I am not exaggerating when I say that there are 5 things that keep me from totally falling apart at the seams right now: 1) God's grace and love, 2) my children, 3) the knowledge that my husband is safe and whole in Heaven, 4) the overwhelming love and support of the people around me, and 5) the fear that if I actually crumble into a thousand pieces (like I sometimes want to), I will never be able to pick them up again.

Even as I share these thoughts, I keep coming back to a conversation I had with my son this morning.  He was asking me why the sky was so dark (it was a gray, almost murky morning).  I suggested that maybe Jesus was sad.  When my son declared that he can't go to school without the sun, the words that came out of my mouth were, "Don't worry honey, the sun is still there, even when we can't see it."  Simultaneously, it hit me: the Son is still there, even when I can't see him.  I am not alone.  I've never been alone.  I'll never be alone.  I am literally being propped up and held by the arms of the God of the Universe.  And he will not let me fall.