Lord get me through the night

Lord Get me through the night

Last night was an exceptionally difficult night for me, one filled with dreams, (or should I call them nightmares) about Dawn. In every case I was waiting for her to return from a ministry event she had been attending, and in every case she never came home. I would find myself searching for her, calling friends, and driving to places where she might be, yet all to no avail. I would awake each time with an all too familiar ache in my heart, reach for her, and once again an all too familiar empty bed. Yet even though there is pain and disappointment at the conclusion of each dream,I find myself seeking, wanting, desiring to never stop dreaming about her, to never stop searching for her, I find myself never wanting to give up hope that this has all been just a long nightmare, and soon I will awake and find her here.
I have received so much advice and shade tree council from folks, (all I am confident desiring to ease my pain), and they tell me “it will all be better some day”, or “don’t worry you will get over it” but will I or do I even want to? Somehow in the midst of my grief I truly wonder if one can ever get over the loss of a spouse of 31 plus years. If as the Bible says the “two shall become one” how can one ever be healed to the point of forgetting, from being torn in half? In 1983 I was playing baseball and fractured my leg, tore my ligaments, and dislocated my ankle, it was over a year and after multiple surgeries and hours of physical therapy before I was able to walk again. My leg and ankle are forever scarred from those surgeries, and sometimes a little pain reminds me of my former injury. I have been forever altered, changed for life by that accident, and yet as severe as it was it is not worthy to be in the same category of loosing my spouse. Almost 22 years ago my father died very unexpectedly and it took well over a year to heal from his sudden loss, and while yes I was a part of him, we were not one!
It has been just eight short weeks tomorrow since Dawns passing, and to those who said it would get worse before it got better, you were correct. You see I don’t believe for one moment that things will ever return to what normal was for me and my family. I don’t think we will ever get over this, but rather this is what and who we have become. I will forever be a widow, my children will have forever lost their mom, my grandchildren their grandmother, my son in law his mom in law, and so on. Hence we are now different people than we were, our goals are new, our dreams have changed, our desires have been altered, our purpose redefined, and yet it all remains to be done for His glory.
You see Dawn and I had a very purposeful and intense life, we have always been very serious about raising our children, and serving the Lord, we lived our life together with the knowledge that some day we would stand before God. We purposed to seek God’s will for us and then do all we could to accomplish it. Now more than ever that same intensity is rising up in my children and in myself, because we now know that all too soon this will all end. We have become even more serious about the purpose of man, about what it means to serve God no matter what He calls you to do, or what it costs you. This is not a game for us, Church is not a social club, youth group is not a hang out, being a Christian is not easy nor should it be. All we know and believe, the hope we have for salvation, it has all come at such a high price, yes Jesus gave His innocent life for us and that alone should be enough, and yet let us not forget the countless thousands or possibly millions who have given their lives for the Gospel. I pray that we would never forget, that we would never take for granted that which we have so easily received.
No we will never again be who we were, nor do we desire to be, we will never forget, we will never completely heal, and I pray that we wouldn’t. This new found joy in Christ, this new found desire to hold on His every word, this new found realization of the cost of our lives, these are the things we desire to hold fresh on our lips. And as long as there is pain in the memory of our loss the intensity with which we serve will continue to burn as a white hot flame. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds, yet I must get through the night, the night filled with dreams that rain down pain on my heart , and for that I can honestly say, I am grateful.
Gene Burroughs Pastor