Grief and Trust in April

I love the change of seasons and look forward to each season as it arrives. But spring is my favorite. I enjoy watching the earth awaken from winter, robe itself in green, and burst out with the music of birdsong and blossoms.

For years I worked at a greenhouse. Every day my hands were in the soil, and I talked plants and gardening with customers. It was a dream job.

This spring may be more beautiful than usual, or maybe I just forget. I'm relishing all the spring joys. 

Yet I feel melencholy. I can't help but recall the past several springs.

2017 - Ed had more and more frequent headaches in April let to the discovery of a brain tumor and diagnosis of glioblastoma in May.

2018 - Ed's tumor returned, and he had his second surgery in March. In May he had a grand mal seizure which I veiw as the turning point of his cognitive ability.

2019 - In March we learned that the cancer had spread to the other side of Ed's brain. His quick decline to a wheelchair, then to a hospital bed, cumilated in his death in May.

2020 - Covid reached our area in March and normal life ground to a halt. 

While in many ways Covid didn't change my days as a mom and homeschooler, I feel like I've carried grief this past year. Grief for the misunderstandings and strained relationships. Grief for the loss of life. A grief that continues a year later.

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Years ago, when I was still a teen, one of the customers at the greenhouse was a sweet older woman who loved gardening. Many years later I met Ed and discovered that this lady went to his church. Throughout the years, I've enjoyed many gardening conversations with her. She usually sat in the row in front of me at church and at this time of year, she would ask if I had been to the greenhouse yet. I have a gift certificate in my purse that she gave me last spring to the greenhouse where we first met. 

But this spring she is in the hospital fighting for her life against Covid. While I know numerous people whose life has been taken by Covid, this is the first person who I saw often. Will you pray for a miracle for Esther?

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As I flipped through the photos I've taken the last few weeks, I realized that we've done many walks in the woods. 

At the end of March, I gathered with 25 widows (most of them strangers) at a camp on a Pennsylvania mountainside. We tramped in the woods that was still stark with winter, ate wonderful food, and spent hours laughing, talking, crying, and singing. I can't describe how soul-strengthening the weekend was for me.

A few weeks later, I hiked with my brother and children to Black Rock on the Applachian Trail. When Ed and I were dating, we hiked here often, but it was the first time I had taken the children. 

Last weekend I walked through the woods with my parents and enjoyed the redbud and other blooming trees. 

I've been thinking a lot about trust and what it means to trust a God who doesn't always answer prayer as I wish. A God who brings us each season despite personal or international grief. A God whose plans are bigger than mine. A God who walks beside us as we carry pain into a beautiful April. 

I'm realizing that I hold God at arm's lenth when He doesn't feel as safe and predictible as springtime. But I'm longing to find new life, renewed relationships, and joy that lasts longer than April blossoms.

And now I can't find a neat and tidy ending to this blog post. So I'll just close with verses that have been meaningful to me in case your April doesn't feel neat and tidy. 

That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 

May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)