"I will give you a new heart"

It is Tuesday.  The day I have dreaded for months came and went, the day after came and went.  I survived.  I am alright.  Things are going to be alright.

Missing Marie is a constant, she is never far from my thoughts and her absence is something that I am learning to live with.  I do not like it but I have accepted it.  And I have Josie and Sarah and they need me.  I am going to be here awhile longer yet.  I want to feel better.

So this morning I started.  I started exercising in a way that I have not for over a year and a half.  Today I left the house with Sarah in the stroller and the dog at my side with the intent to make my body work.  We lead pretty active lives, almost every evening is a walk or a bike ride but this was different.  This was doing something for myself that I just have not had the energy to do until now.  Because grief is exhausting.  The too tired to think, ache in your bones kind of exhausting.  I feel that less now.

So we set out, you can sort of feel autumn in the air in the mornings now.  Summer is changing.  About halfway through my brisk walk I looked down and saw the writing on my t-shirt.  My t-shirt that Josie decorated for me using sharpie markers and is covered with polka dots and squiggles.  The text reads:

" I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you".  Ezekiel 36:26

I think that sort of sums up where I am now.  My heart was shattered into a tiny little pieces.  My spirit was broken.  And then something happened.  When my heart split the pieces were held in His hands.  When my spirit broke He held me up.  I have not been alone.  I have been carried, and cared for, and loved just as my daughter is in Heaven.  

Right after Marie was called home a friend turned Luke and I toward Psalm 34:18.
"The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit."  That is where we were then... this is where we are now.   " I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you".  We have come through... and there it is in His word.  I am so humbled by this, filled with joy by this.  I need to sing praises for this.


I can feel my heart beating stronger.  Not the heart I used to have but a heart filled with love in a new way. Filled with a commitment to the Lord in a new way.  My heart is a more sypmathetic heart, more tender in a way.  My spirit has changed too.  I am becoming a new person.  


There is the shadow of who I was, and in many ways I am the same.  Just older, less daring, more careful, more thoughful, more appriciative.  I try to be more patient, slower to jump to conclusions.  I try to think outside myself, to ask God how to serve Him instead of charging ahead.


I have come through the valley, but in reality I know there are many cloudy days in my future. 

For today it was enough to walk in the sunshine with a good dog beside me, a baby happy in the stroller and the knowlege that He will give me a new heart to heal the one that is broken.  He will put a new spirit in me, to serve, to praise, to love.  Today came with the knowlege that everything is going to be okay... even though it really, really hurts sometimes He's taking care of me, He'll carry me through.  And I'm good with that.