Joy In The Journey

  Do you sometimes wish that you could go to heaven, if Jake and you could go together?  My niece asked me a question something like this not to long ago. 

   Not just Jake and I but all four of us, yes I do, it would have to be all four of us because I could not bare the thought of Tyler and Angeline having to go through another tragedy but if in someway the four of us could all enter the gates of heaven and meet Roderick there and all be together again, that would be so amazing.  Being surrounded with the kind of love that we could only taste a tiny bit of here.  Who wouldn’t want that?

   I do not need to think along these lines for long and I realize I am content to stay here a little longer.  My kids they still need me, I cannot leave them living in a home without a mother, now when they are their normal sweet selves anybody would be there for them and love them but when they have their moments that are not so loving and sweet then I’m convinced that nobody would love them the way I do.  Now I know that God would be there for them and I also know that should that be the case God would send people to be there for them even at their worst moments but so I feel.  Maybe when they are on their own and have their own families then I could go, they wouldn’t need me much anymore but no, I don’t want my grandchildren to have to go to grandparents day every year and borrow someone else’s grandma because their grandma can’t make it.  I don’t want my grandkids to wonder why their grandma is not there to watch their games, dance, or piano recital like their friends’ grandmas.  I guess I’ll have to wait awhile before I’m ready to go but I don’t mind because Roderick is so well taken care of in heaven.  Here our kids need their parents, who gave birth to them to take care of them until they learn to understand the love of their real father but in heaven they have not the parents who gave birth to them but the father who actually planned their lives before they were born and who knit them together in their mother’s womb, so I have no reason to worry about Roderick.  When I pray for Tyler and Angeline about my concerns for them or their struggles and desire for them to make the right choices I no longer have any concerns or worries about Roderick.  Instead I always add to my prayers “Thank-you Lord that Roderick is with You in heaven”.

  When I think about how beautiful and how wonderful heaven is with no worries, no weariness and only all joy and happiness forever and ever then I think, ‘what is another 60 years compared to eternity and even though there is sadness and grief I have to go through I am quite content to deal with that for a little longer and finish my course here on earth and focus on the joys in my journey for in the end it will be worth it all.

  

   Maybe this sounds sad and discouraging but quite honestly since Roderick has moved to heaven I have spent so much time reading about heaven and imagining it that it has become so real to me and I find it brings me joy in the journey.  I feel like everyone should read about heaven, it makes the struggles and trials seem so insignificant while the joys and victories seem so much greater.  We don’t want to just waste our time on this earth sitting and waiting until we get to go to heaven but if we truly knew the joy of heaven this journey would be so much more enjoyable.  It’s like running a race but focusing on the reward in the end.  Yes there are aches and pains but they seem insignificant because your running a race and you know you are winning.  If you’re only running through this life but you have no idea what your running for, you’re just running and running aaannd running having no idea when it will end, you begin to feel the pain in the muscles and the aches in the bones and all you can think about is when will this pain end, why do I keep running, what’s the use yet you can’t stop because life continues and you have to go with it.  I truly believe the more real heaven is to us the more we can enjoy the race but only if we actually run the race not if we sit down and wait until heaven will come to us now that’s just depressing.

Joy In The Journey

Verse:

Along with friends and family, we travel up the road

A happy band of pilgrims, Heaven is our goal

And we love this life we're living, discovering each day

That the joys of the journey are many on the way

Verse:

Now we're moving with a purpose, an eternal point of view

Like the years that hurry by us, we're only passing through

Now we work for Jesus gladly, to give our best away

Satisfied in knowing our labor's not in vain

Chorus:

And there's joy in the journey, good times in the going

It's not all in the reaping, there's plenty in the sowing

Taking pleasure in the progress, we make from day to day

Oh, there's joy in the journey, to Heaven all the way

(key change)

Verse:

Well, it's true there are some struggles, and sure there are some tears

But they're so outweighed by blessing they just fade and disappear

Now we're helping one another as to higher ground we climb

And the light on the horizon gets brighter all the time

I Want to See Heaven

I Want To See Heaven

Did you do anything special today?
I’m reading a book about heaven. I want to see heaven too. Do you think I could?

See heaven in a dream?
Yea maybe, however I don’t care just somehow

I’m ok if you see heaven in a dream only
I’m going to ask God if I can see heaven?

Sure but only safe
I’m sure God would only do it safe

Well Roderick is seeing heaven but from our point of view it wasn’t safe.  That’s what I mean Dream only.

Have a good night and I pray that you will have a heavenly dream

Love you

This is a conversation I had with my sister.

   I woke up three times that night with a dream, every time remembering that I wanted to see heaven.  My dreams were definitely not heavenly.  Once I dreamed that we had lost Tyler too.  The other dream Jake and I were fighting and Jake hit me.  (He never yells at me and definitely would never hit me).  The other dream I forgot.  Maybe some night soon I can see heaven J but until then I will be content imagining it.

   Let me quote some of what I read in the book “Heaven Is”.  The feel of the grass was soft like velvet, fur, soft moss, and even feeling somewhat like soft cotton.  Upon closer inspection at a blade of grass it seemed that it was translucent green.  This grass was like frosted green glass.  As I became aware of the grass and the flowers, a gentle breeze wafted past.  As the peaceful wind drifted about me, I could hear and feel the grass and the flowers singing… in unison, with one harmonious voice!

   The Angel observed my amazement!  He laughed and said. “Heaven is a joyful place. Everything in Heaven praises the Lord”.

   Stretching out my fingers, I put my hands deep into the cool grass beside me.  The grass looked, as it was wet with dew.  I swooshed my hands back and forth the bending of the green grass caused the brilliant flowers to flop about, sending majestic music into the air. 

   The dew perhaps more like sparking diamonds than drops of water, twinkles and scattered into the air like tiny silver stars. 

   The movement of my hands through the grass did not make an earthly swooshing sound.  It made a tinkling sound.  Each blade, each flower petal pinged aloud with a different musical note as if from a music box or the tinkling of a wind chime.  They emitted high, middle and low notes.  

   I didn’t take this out of the Bible so I’m not trying to make this Gospel but I do know that we can never imagine heaven beautiful enough. 

   So let’s imagine Roderick walking, no I mean running, (Roderick doesn't walk) through the soft velvet like grass in heaven.  From his feet we see the dew like twinkling stars rising from the grass and hitting his pants.  Instead of the swooshing sound we hear in our yard we hear the sound of beautiful wind chimes rising softly from the grass as his feet move.  Every dew drop that lands on his pants is a sparkly colorful prism. Yea seriously I do want to see heaven.  Don’t you?

Health and Beauty

    

 I ended my post last week by saying that I wanted to daily take steps toward healing and watch God make something beautiful out of this tragedy.  That is the thing I have focused on this week. 

   I continue to struggle emotionally, I long for the day when I can talk about Roderick and all the things that happen without crying all the time.  Many times I will choose to just say nothing rather then risk loosing it again.  One of the struggles that I’ve had right from the start is how to tell someone who doesn’t know it yet.  I have no problem talking about it to someone who knows what happened but when I need to tell someone who hasn’t heard it’s like my whole body tenses up and the tears threaten to come before I even start.  I also find it awkward when I don’t know if people know, meaning people that I see on a weekly basis like new parents in school or hockey parents that weren’t on the team last year.  I’ve had a few parents come to me after Christmas saying that they had no idea and I feel bad because I want them to know and it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, I do but at the same time how and when do I tell them.  It’s not like we sit and visit its more just meeting and chatting while we wait for our kids or for a meeting to start.  I would find it easier if, like I said before, I didn’t risk bursting into tears as soon as I say something.

   We went to the bank to open a college fund for Tyler and Angeline this week, since both of them received a scholarship last year.  Obviously they ask for how many children and we have to answer two.  It just doesn’t seem right that this lady now believes that we have two kids only but that’s the kind of life we have to get use to now. 

   So these are the reasons that my prayer is for healing from the pain.  I know that this will be a part of our life but I believe the Lord can heal the wound and it can become a scar rather then a bleeding open wound. 

   The thing that I meditate on most though for 2017 is that we will see God turn this tragedy into something beautiful.  I am especially thinking of all the dear ones that have been most affected by this tragedy.  The four of us and all the wonderful friends and relatives that are so close to Roderick.  I have had a few special and meaningful discussions with Angeline this week and I can feel a deeper bond forming between us and I’m praying it will also help Angeline form a deeper and stronger relationship with the Savior.  I believe we will continue to see beauty from ashes as the saying goes.  With the beauty, healing will come also.  At times when things are hard and it seems that the loss of Roderick is causing mostly doubts and struggles, I have to just believe in faith but I will continue to walk in faith, I know it is God’s will for us to see the tragedy turn into something beautiful. 

   I have spent the last few days reading Melanie Penner’s blog.  She went to be with the Lord in August of 2015.  The last two years of her life she fought cancer and blogged her journey, I’m going to quote a paragraph that she wrote which touched me and made me determined not to be quiet just because I might cry.  She wrote: I think most of us prefer to look like we have it all together.  We like to appear well (and healthy).  But the reality is most of the time, we all have something messed up in our lives.  We tend to keep our messes hidden, unless we can't.  I don't have the option of hiding my suffering, but being real isn't so bad.  In fact, it allows people to care and show their concern.  My challenge to each of you is to be real.  Let people in your life know what your life is really like.  Let people close to you know when something in your life is hard, or causing fear, or hurting your heart.  Most people will not like you less; they want to help.  I have learned that there is healing in letting others in to the secret parts of your lives.

   

Much to be Grateful For

Much to be Grateful For

  

 

Roderick, his last summer here, on a canoe
trip down the Manigotagan River.
Roderick's dad and him took this trip together
with some other dad's with their sons

 A new year has started and the kids are back in school.  We are back in a routine and ready to make the most of the year.  Monday I had another pity party for myself but even though I’m selfish enough to have those once in a awhile I’m also smart enough to shake myself and say that’s enough it’s time to stop the party and move on.  We have so much to be thankful for.  I’ve mentioned before in my blogs that I believe God can heal us in a real way.  And I am so thankful for that.  I’m not only praying for healing from the pain but also that God will make something incredibly beautiful out of this tragedy.  One time when I was crying in pain, so longing for some relief, I thought of Roderick in heaven, how happy he is, very much real and alive and I thought, I can accept the fact that we have a son in heaven, I can move on but is it to much to ask God in return for an exceptionally tight bond between the four of us that are still here?  Would it be selfish to ask that all the love we cannot physically give Roderick would just be divided amongst us and that we would just be drawn closer to each other in an exceptional way all through life here on earth.  Also all of Roderick’s amazing friends who have suffered with us through this journey, can I ask to see them all succeed and prosper in every way but especially in their soul and in their relationships?  I pray that this will make them stronger and help them make wiser decisions that will help them have real meaning in their lives.  So many people look like they have great lives but feel so empty, please not these wonderful friends.  I pray that to all of us heaven will become a very real place and we will live life knowing that we are on our way to our true home which is heaven where we will all see Roderick again.

   I was asked a question this week that led me to think how wonderful it is that I can have a personal relationship with the Lord and that I can go to Him with all my questions and He will actually provide me with answers.  Now I know there are a lot of why questions that we might never get answers for, those are questions we don’t really need answers for but when we have honest questions that we need answers for God will give us answers.  For example:  I prayed at the scene of the accident that God would send us some answers and later He gave me a clear and specific answer, or when Jake was having a hard time and God provided him with a dream that Roderick was alive and well.  All these to me are gifts from God and I realize again we are truly fortunate.  I cannot even imagine how people do it who cannot go to God in their grief and who look to so many other sources to find some comfort and some closure. 

   So as we start this new year I have not made a lot of specific new years resolution but just aim to look everyday for steps I can take towards our healing, make a difference to the people God brings across my path and watch the Lord make something beautiful out of this tragedy.  Watch with me and we will see it together.

The one and only time we went to West Edmonton Mall with all
three of our children, we went there again over the holidays this
year.