I miss my mom today. I was driving home after lunch and glanced at the clock. "1:38," I thought, "I'll call Mom; she's probably at lunch." I shook my head and realized all in one moment that she's not here. Oh, how I long that she could've seen Zooey on Christmas. I wish I could've talked with her about the ways Zooey's grown in the last year, how she really gets how to open a gift now, how cute she was on her slide that Santa brought her. I wish I could upload the video of Christmas morning and show her and see her eyes light up and hear her laugh. I wish I could take her to the places I take Zooey to play and explore. I just miss sharing life with her. I wish I could hear her tell me funny stories, or sing her silly songs to her dogs, or hear her tell me what she learned on Charles Stanley. It's the little things, you know?

I realized while I was journaling today that it's hard to really be real with people. They ask how things are going, I give a brief sentence answer. I usually change the subject. Why? I don't know. Grief feels very private to me. I feel...confused...right now. I will go several days and be fine. I will go several days and be very sad and feel very alone in my grief. I will be fine in the morning and a wreck before bedtime. Or fine in the morning and have a rough drive in the car with my memories. I can feel very confident in the hope I'll see her in heaven, but other moments feel so sad that I'll never see her here again. One day I still feel like she's just on a trip, the next it feels very final. My emotions are really all over the place, so that's why it's hard to be real. That's why I think I change the subject and can't open up, even though there are times I desperately want to. I appreciate your prayers, though. Thank you so much for that!

I also realized today that I've been struggling being real with God. Which is kinda' funny to me, because I'm the one to always encourage people to be real with God, because He already knows everything, anyway. The thing is, I think I'm trying to hide. I think I want to pretend I'm ok sometimes, even when I feel Him prompting me to come to Him with my tears. I don't want to face it, so I ignore Him. Not the proper response. It was so freeing for me to come to Him today and be refreshed with the knowledge that He DOES know, He knows it all - my joys, my sorrows, my fears, my doubts and apprehensions. He knows I just want to be done with the hard stuff and move on. Unfortunately, that's not exactly how it works, so He encourages me to pick up my Bible, to bow my head to pray, even when it is hard. He wants to bind up my broken heart and heal my crushed spirit, but that kind of repair takes time. If surgeries can last 12 hours, why do I think God will fix me up in a mere 5 months from such damage? It's going to take time, but God is the author of time, so I can trust He has big plans for it. Even in the lowest points, even when it sucks worse than anything I've ever experienced, I can honestly say I'm excited to what He has for me on the other side.