My Birthday Dinner--Just Six of Us
I just had one of those weekends.
It was my birthday...and...
One of my son's dearest friends got married in California.
The son of his second mother...my dearest friend's son.
The ones who walked us through two memorial services and wept with us.
I so wanted to be there.
I had planned for months to be there.
It felt like I should be there.
So many people I love all in one place.
But when the moment came,
I just couldn't do it.
Couldn't force myself into it.
Hyperventilation, palpitations, throat constriction.
Happy occasions are dangerous now.
They rip the heart open, and create an emotional emergency, not unlike a medical one.
Symptoms abound.
I've worked so hard to paste my broken heart back together,
to keep it beating,
and it's ever. so. fragile.
My birthday, without my son, is bad enough.
(bad, bad, bad.)
Being at a wedding with all his closest friends is more than I can bear.
Too many broken dreams all in one place.
But I send my love, my gift, my prayers,
And thank them all
for their grace and compassion
in understanding
the weakness of a cripple.
Heb 4:15,16
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
