Heavy Emptiness

Sleep eludes me tonight.  I'm tired, the kind of tired that seems to penetrate into the marrow of my bones.  Yet sleep does not come.  My mind struggles with the brutal reality that I will not see Laynee again on this earth.  It is an inconcievable fact that my brain, my heart, my soul simply cannot fully grasp.  As I lay for awhile in the darkness, I found myself wondering how it is that I can feel so heavy and so empty at the same time.  Heavy and Empty:  by definition, they contradict one another.

The heaviness comes from the weight of grief.  My body is physically exhausted from the effort of going on when the natural flow of life has stopped, like working directly against gravitational force. I'm weary of trying to find something that remotely resembles  a new normal, when everything seems so wrong.  I am weak and the weight is crushing. 

The emptiness obviously comes from the vacancy that Laynee's abscence has left within me.  There is a wide chasm within my heart and her memory, her voice, her laughter echoes within.  The chasm cannot be filled, my heart remains cracked and broken, the damage irrevocable.  Adding to the heaviness is the awareness that, because nothing can fill the hole, I must build around the chasm, navigating the steep and rocky conditions.  My footing is uncertain, it is a path on which I've never trod and at times the emptiness feels as though it might swallow me. 

I've struggled lately, frustrated with myself for the fact that I continue to see loss when I have so much gain.  People remind me over and over that I have 5 beautiful, living children, as though somehow I might forget or perhaps that this fact should make the loss less painful.  I love and appreciate each of my children, I praise my God for them.  I GO ON for them.  But it is very difficult to be happy when I feel so sad.

In the midst of all the sadness, my lord is there.  There is no weight too heavy for him to bear,  no chasm so vast that he cannot span.  Though many may not understand, he does.  He knows that sometimes the hurt is too big for words.

  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,

nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,

shall be able to separate us from the love of God,

which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39