Oscura Noche de Mi Alma

This will be a story that brings hope. Restoration and healing will be born from this pain. This heartache will be redeemed.

When the calls and cards stop coming, Your grace is enough.

When they shovel red Georgia clay over the casket of my beloved, even there, Your grace is enough.

When I have to go back to work and pretend I'm okay...well, even though it doesn't feel like it, Your grace really is enough.

I don't know how to answer the "how are you?" question anymore. How are you supposed to be? Cause sometimes, I'm completely alright. Other times, I want to curl up and die - I want to ram my car into that oncoming 18-wheeler. I don't because I know I wouldn't get to see how God is going to redeem this. But I feel like it sometimes.

Oy, where do you even begin with something like this? I feel like I'm piecing together something much larger than myself: I have elements of regret mixed with hope, faith with anger, intense moments of longing and simultaneously, instant forgetfulness (and then guilt from forgetting). These past two weeks have contained and overwhelmed me. They have held the worst event (what a small, simple word to describe so much!) I've ever experienced in my life, and yet, somehow, in the midst of such blinding darkness, I've seen and felt so much light, so much love.

Death is this weird sort of phenomenon, final and thresshold at the same time. Cody's life is still continuing, that's for sure. His story is now dispersed and deposited in me, his twin sister, his family, and his friends. Its somehow indivisibly linked with every single person he came in contact with. It's beautiful. His legacy lives on as a sort of eternal life that exists in art and music - his effect will be felt for generations. Of course, I find a lot of peace in the eternal life Christ has offered, knowing Cody isn't hurting - he's safe - forever, he's Home, he's being lavished on with love from the Father, renetworking the entire computer entry system, and worshipping God through living even more fully. I get to see him again. That brings such comfort.

Mourning comes in waves. I spent an entire week without crying. Then, last night, I couldn't stop. I keep forgetting that he's not on some month-long vacation. Cody really isn't coming back. All of our plans together, all of our fights and fiascoes, all of our adventures, they're just memories now. I really do long for Home, for final rescue - it just feels so far away. I know there is resurrection. And I have never been so thankful for Christ's sacrifice on the cross to offer me eternal life with Himself. It really means something more now. As Job said, "Though He slay me, I will hope in Him." I just feel so lost here, in Newnan, without him (why yes, I did spend 2 hours in Hobby Lobby on a Friday night and eat dinner by myself!).

So, what's life without Cody like? Well:

- I'm talking to myself a lot more. And by "myself," I mean I'm talking to Cody all the time, whether he can hear me or not.

- I'm writing a whole lot more and taking too many pictures. Everything's worth documenting.

- I'm distracted almost all the time.

- But I'm genuinely caring about people.

- My sorrow is deeper, but so is my joy.

- I have a peace that literally surpasses my comprehension.

- I feel caught up in this crazy upholding network of love and grace.

- I feel incredibly responsible to be strong for Cody's family and friends. I want to exhibit the hope found solely in Jesus. He really is good news.

- I'm living in the light of the resurrection daily - praying that Christ will come today but praying that Cody's friends will see what real life, abundant life is about - the kind of life Cody lived (I pray that I live that way too).

- Death isn't the worst this that can happen for those of us found in Christ- its really the absolute best. Of course, it just doesn't feel that way for those of us left behind to pick up the pieces. ("For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.")

- Life's not all that long. We're much closer to being with Jesus and experiencing heaven than I ever hoped to imagine. In the light of eternity, this pain will make the light of His glory that much sweeter to behold.

- There's just so much hope, so much mercy, so many people to love on and let them in on this incredible mystery which is what Paul said: Christ in you, the hope of glory. Woot for that.

Thank you for loving on me during this time - for kidnapping me from the deep melancholy, the shaking sorrow, and the seclusion that I so often run towards. Thank you for literally being the very shoulder of Christ, on which to snot up your sleeves.

Here's to you, Cody! As my picture frame that sits on my desk that houses your handsome face reads: "Because of you I live fully, laugh louder, and love deeply." You changed me, Blackbird.

"Soon will come that Celebration Wedding...and bundles of restoration will be our bedding." - BH (again!)