Yesterday

Last night I was doing my bible study ( Esther, by Beth Moore). As I was reading, a song came on in the background... I don't know the name, it is by Shawn Mcdonald and says "the sunsets, the sunrise I will not forget all that you've done for me..." and it raced me back to moments past.... Preston and I listened randomly to that song throughout our days. It wasn't a special song, we liked it, but we could take it or leave it. However, this moment this song captured my heart and pulled me back into the sweet moments of Preston and Tara. I remembered running errands with him around NE Portland... every day things that were mundane, but are now precious - so don't take even those little things for granted, thank God you have them. I wished I could put the song on repeat and just for a few moments live in yesterday.

I feel SO far away from Preston. I know that he will always be apart of Tara, Micah and Jacob, BUT what I mean is that I am drifting further and further from Preston and Tara and that is excruciatingly difficult. When you imagine your entire future with someone and then that dream becomes an impossibility and there's not a thing you can do about it..... well there are no words to even describe how crappy that is. When someone you love dies there is an obvious void, but the hardest part to accept is just that...knowing there is a void that wont' ever be filled. There are a billion things in life we can "fix" or make better, but not death.

SO THEN... I was journaling my tears and then my rage and while I was in my rage I looked over at a picture of Preston - the one where he has a thumbs up and looks so happy. I instantly thought... LOOK UP Tara... Preston would not want you to soak in this moment of anger about a reality you can't change...yes live here for a moment, but DON'T soak - look upwards, to God and the eternal perspective you so believe in. And so I did. It's really like running a nasty marathon... in my friend Shelly's words, "you feel like you're gonna die, but you just keep going and you somehow finish" and so I did...i looked to God and managed to praise him in the storm... i had to, it would be ridiculous and do nothing for me to stay there. I find the deeper I grow in my relationship with the Lord the easier these "drowning" moments are to come out of...

Pastor Jim said it perfectly today, (hit me with a punch and brought peace)

"As believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, our hope DOES NOT reside in the rescue of American ideals... or the realization of the American dream from an economic nightmare. That ship has sailed. Besides, it was a destination to Nowhere. For us, the prophet Isaiah put it well:

One day God

"Will swallow up death FOREVER.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove the disgrace of his people
from all the earth.
For The LORD has spoken."

This is MY God, the God whom I put my trust and hope in - how incredible!