When Love Comes in a Jelly Jar

I was just having one of those days, you know the kind you wish you could just skip; it's not that anything bad happened, I just felt incredibly discouraged.  I could feel depression knocking on my door and I didn't want to answer; it kept knocking, I kept ignoring, but I was getting more discouraged by the minute.  Suddenly my thoughts were flooded with doom and gloom, and the weights got heavier and heavier. Humm, wonder where that's all coming from, certainly not God!  

    So I took the dog for a walk.  Exercise should help right?  I cried and prayed most of the way, but I'm sure the dog didn't even notice, except he was exceptionally good for once.  Normally on a walk he's stopping to pee on something every few feet and I'm tripping over his leash, but somehow, today, he just trotted on beside me, enjoying the warm weather and only stopped to sniff a few things.  When I finished my trek around the neighborhood with the dog, I stopped to pick up today’s mail.  There was this box in the mail box, and I was curious, and trying to remember if I'd ordered anything lately, but as far as I could remember, I hadn't.  I finally pulled it out, (it was a pretty tight squeeze to get it in the little mailbox) I noticed it was from my friend Brenda in Montana.  For the life of me, I couldn't think of anything that Brenda would be sending me, and besides, my birthday was several weeks ago.  

   I went and sat on the chair on the porch, yes, it really was warm enough to sit outside today; imagine 54 degrees in North Dakota on January 27th! I opened the box with my mailbox key and as I started to unwrap the contents of the bubble wrap and tissue paper, I began to really cry, the big slobbery kind of cry, that requires Kleenex. It was a jar of Jalapeno/Basil Jelly that Brenda had made this fall, and I had heard how wonderful it was.  I cried and cried.  I know, now you really think I'm crazy, I'm crying over jelly.  It wasn't the jelly, really, it was the thought behind it.  Although I am not a jelly fan at all, (PP&J's are only good if you leave off the 'J') I do love Jalapeno Jelly.  I'd been teasing Brenda about her jelly since she made it last fall, (showing off her  wonderful jars with Facebook pictures) saying she should "Beam me up Scottie" so I could come have a taste.  

    I dialed her number, still sobbing, then thought maybe I should have waited till I quit crying so I wasn't blowing snot in her ear.  The tissue wrapping paper became my Kleenex, and I finally dried my eyes, and had a wonderful long chat with Brenda, her every word lifting my sinking spirit. 

     Friends that love you, that don't even care if you're blowing your nose and can barely talk through the tears, those kind of friends are a such a treasure.  I'm so thankful God has put not only Brenda, but many others like her that have been there for me no matter what.  They know my heart, and believe in me, even when I don't.  They're there to pick me up and dust me off when I've fallen and bruised my knee. They are there when I don't think there's any hope, to remind me of the God of all hope. They are there showing me God still loves me and has plans for me too. I thank God so much for my friends.

    Thank you Brenda for the jelly and the encouragement, and most of all thank you Jesus for showing me love in a jar of jelly. (Yah, it's got a good kick too!)

  Prov 27: 9 says, “Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the sweetness of a friend is better than self-counsel.” (HCSB)

     

The Anniversary

"Mom, don't do it, do you really want this memory on your Anniversary?"

"What difference is gonna make, this is when he died, it will always be remembered at this time anyway.  This is the day we started our lives together, this will be the day, we honor him and we say our good-byes."

That was my conversation with my oldest son, Tyson, last year, concerning when to have Todd's funeral.  I chose today, January 2.  It just seemed the right thing to do.  I don't regret my decision.    I wanted to honor Todd in every way possible.  

How does one say their good-byes to your best friend, spouse, lover, prayer partner, pard, soulmate?  It's been a very long hard process.  There's not been a day gone by this past year, when I haven't missed him, thought of him, remembered a memory of him.

God sent me on a journey this past year, that is probably not the typical grieving widows journey,  but it was a journey I needed.  It required a lot of time traveling, and God so graciously supplied me with the money for every part of the journey.  He sent me back to places that sometimes were hard to go back to, some were a joy to return to.  Every place, every person, significant in Todd's and my life together.  It was like putting a puzzle together that had just been dumped on the ground.  I had memory of it all as a picture before, but it had been destroyed, and now piece by piece God is putting it back together.  Some of you were there helping me put the pieces back together, helping me find the connecting pieces of what the picture of my life will look like now.  

I've never been good at putting puzzles together, just ask my kids.  I struggle for hours, if my patience lasts that long,  just trying to find two pieces that connect.  Once in a illustrated lesson with Kristi, I was suppose to put together this really simple puzzle (with the picture), while she had to put together a more difficult puzzle without the picture of what it looked like.  She finished her difficult puzzle, and had to help me finish mine.  So much for an illustration. (The point trying to be made was when you have the picture of what you're doing- the Bible as your guide- you can put your puzzle together quicker.)  We've had a few laughs over that one.  

A friend, on one of my journeys, described my past year as this, "Kelley, it's like God has been giving you connections, like a net being tied together.  It's like a safety net, to help and protect you."  I thought that was a great illustration.  

In the back of the guest book from our wedding, I have written down what we did every year on our Anniversary.  I have no entry to write this year, only memories to remember of the one who I loved more than anyone else. So wish he was still in the present picture, but he'll always be in my heart. Love and miss you Todd.