You’ve been here with me, I think? When your world is turned upside down and nothing will ever be right again. Time marches and the grace keeps flowing and you find joy breathes again from the most unlikely places.
AN UPSIDE DOWN JOY
Loss sweeps you off your feet.
It comes, uninvited, with no apology
It lifts you up, tips you upside-down
and shakes you til you’re empty
and it’s hard to find any piece of you left.
It broadsides you. You may be
looking up at the sun, reaching
for the next mercy that’s before you.
It hits you from behind and your feet,
they flail wildly unable to touch
the ground and find security, stability.
Survival makes them quiet. Makes
them set down beneath you and move
forward shakily on this new ground.
Your heart stays behind but your feet
they move, driven by routine,
producing a stilted rhythm but
it’s in moving that your heart keeps
its beating and your life keeps on living.
They say time heals. Maybe it does.
But when I look back I still see
a deep, deep, hole. It has a sign
called LOSS at the edge. And a face
of a little boy there.
What face do you see?
But these feet shuffling forward
point my eyes to another spot. It is
a sign with GAIN written all over.
It also has the picture of
a little boy there.
In the folds of His providence
there are mercy treasures and
unexpected joys that my tired eyes
and slow heart never thought to see.
It continues beyond even what my
eyes can see.
So all these holes and all these mercies exist, together.
The gains do not erase the loss.
And the loss opens our hearts to
gains we never imagined.
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Kara is mom to 5 kids, including Calvin who was born with a neurological disorder. She's the creator of Live Better With Disability, a positive place for parents of special needs kids to find strategy and perspective.
She writes about their journey at www.karadedert.com
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