Keepin' it real...

        In the words of the Pioneer Woman.... I'm keeping it real today.
        It is easy, when your writing a blog to "edit" your life and make it look pretty. It would be so much easier to just write about the ways God is working on me, through my son's passing away. You may mistakenly think I was strong if that was all you read. But....it wouldn't be the truth. It is far from the truth. Sometimes in the grief there is hope. Sometimes in the grief there is joy. Sometimes in the grief there is healing. But sometimes the grief is just UGLY.
          When it is ugly, no one can say the right thing. You think no one could possibly understand. The only things you can seem to remember are the bad. The terrifying words of the doctors, the site of my baby boy being resuscitated, the anger, the fact that my sister was not allowed to see him until he was laying there dying. Thoughts of what I will never do with him consume me. My heart feels black. My body feels burdened. And my soul feels betrayed. 
           That is the UGLY grief that I feel like I am constantly trying to beat back with a stick. My stick is big though, and some day I will succeed in beating down that UGLY grief.  My stick looks a lot like a promise.... This promise: 

Isaiah 61:3 -to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. 

Awaiting my crown of beauty.......