Some days I really miss living near family. I mean, hubby and I have a lovely life -- immediate family, including kids and grands, and a bevy of friends. The kind of friends who are there when you need them and might well be family measured by the strength of connection.
Still, in moments like these I find myself longing for the cousins, those companions of childhood who just were. . .not quite siblings, but more than friends, connected by blood and mutual history.
Perhaps my current funk is also brought on by that spectre of middle age -- the sense of one's own mortality that descends with the passing of relatives and friends so close to one's own age -- or even younger. This reality is compounded by the fact that I no longer get "carded" when asking for the senior discount. I could further depress myself by making a list of cousins my age and younger who have gone on. But I won't -- or maybe I will, but I won't include it here.
So what's the upside? Or, why on earth am I writing/posting this?
For one thing, just writing makes me feel better. The grief no longer sits in my gut eating on my tranquility. Rather it resides on a page outside of myself, a testimony to grief.
For another, some reading this will relate and realize they are not alone. The blue funk hits the best of us. Even Jesus wept. . . though for more profound reasons.
Nonetheless, scripture describes Jesus as "a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief." And His words provide comfort:
Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
John 14:27 I am leaving you with a gift-peace of mind and
heart! And the peace I give is not fragile like the peace the world
gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.
John 14:18 No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm--
I will come to you.
And with those words, I shall shake off this ennui and get packed for the journey "down home."
