He restoreth my soul

the Lord is my Shepherd...

I remember these series of Bible verses from my early years.  I have heard them over and over again in my thirty-six years.  But I have never really stopped to put thoughts to each word in these six familiar verses.

In my grief class one particular verse has been brought up and for the first time a few weeks ago I let each word sink in:

"yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." (Psalm 23:4 KJV*)

I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The valley of the shadow of death.  That is where I have been walking.  The valley, the pit. Valley's in life are expected. No single person is free from the burden of life's valley's.  They are no fun and certainly test a person's faith. Add in that valley the shadow of death. The shadow of Kyle's death has been lingering over me the past few weeks.  I don't grieve for Kyle; he has been made new in Heaven.  He is in a place of no suffering, no pain, no fear. I have grieved over the lack of Kyle here on earth. The memories we make that he isn't here to be a part of. 

The shadow of death. I believe this may very well be what they call the grief fog.  Where you go through the motions day to day.  You do what you need to do to survive but you don't truly live.    

The past 10 months have tested me.  In fact there have been times over the last month or so that I felt like I was slipping. There has been a heaviness hanging over me.  I got to where I was pretty good at fake smiling when it mattered - but I have felt so empty. Blank. I noticed that I was starting to actually distance myself from everyone. I felt myself pulling away from everyone who had been such a huge part of how I have made it the past ten months. I felt like maybe my grief journey was starting to go backwards and, quite honestly, it worried me. I know that people say that grief changes you - but I honestly was fearing that I wasn't going to be "me" again. 

I was just going through motions.  

Imagine a flower that is so alive, it spends its days dancing in the breeze, standing tall, face to heaven - and then one day the life starts slowly trickling from it - it starts fading, it starts wilting. This is how I felt.  I was wilting.   

I started to feel like my valley had a valley.

But then Friday, October 28, 2016 happened.

I had to take a trip to Florida.  We arrived early Thursday. I invited my cousin to come with me.  Back story, my cousin, Erika, and I are more like sisters.  We did a lot of our growing up together.  We haven't gotten to spend a lot of time together and I wanted to her to come with me.
  

When we arrived in Florida early Thursday afternoon we spent about four hours doing nothing but sitting on the beach.  Yes, it was nice. And it was relaxing.  I took a journal with me to just write down thoughts as I had them.  One thing I wrote on Thursday was:

"God. It is so true that sometimes you need to allow grief to wash over you like the waves of the ocean.  I feel as if I've done that. I feel as if I do that.  When grief comes at me, I don't fight it because I know that the healing comes from feeling.  But, God, I want - no NEED - YOU to wash over me like the waves of the ocean. Envelop me. Let me feel You all around me, all over me, all through me.  God, I need You!"

And then I just sat there on the shore allowing these waves of the ocean to come and wash over me. Little did I know what God had planned for me the very next day. 

Friday, we had decided to take a day trip to Gainesville to go see Ben Hill Griffin Stadium aka The Swamp where my beloved Florida Gators play...and where almost exactly five years ago Kyle proposed to me.  We had decided to take the scenic route on the way out. We picked out a couple of places to stop along the way but otherwise made no itinerary. 

This trip was actually almost more relaxing to me than sitting on the beach.  I have always loved road trips. I saw parts of the country that I had never laid my eyes on before.  We had the windows down, music up, we sang our lungs out, we talked about ev-er-y-thing under the sun, we laughed until we nearly cried, and we actually did cry. We ate key lime pie on Panama City Beach, we drove over 4 mile long bridges (if you knew my fear of bridges, you'd understand the importance),we went to an island, climbed a lighthouse, counted political signs, and just lived life. I haven't done this in a long, long time. And it was during this part of the trip that God started chipping away at this wall I had been trying to build for the past month.  I felt actually alive for the first time in months.  

Panama City Beach

St. George Island Lighthouse

From the top of the lighthouse (click to enlarge)

beautiful coastal drive

And then we arrived at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.  A trip that should have taken about seven hours ended up taking us about ten and a half.  But it didn't matter. We were there.  

Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

I haven't been to the Swamp since Kyle proposed to me in November 2011.  When I walk into the stadium it always brings emotions - the good kind.  I love that place.  Seriously love it. 

There was actually something very poetic about being in The Swamp at night. 

The last time I was here it was day time, bright outside, there was excitement in the air because it was homecoming weekend, and the field was vibrant with that giant orange "F" marking midfield where Kyle proposed. 

This time it was night time, the big stadium lights weren't on so it was darker than I have ever seen it, and other than about five other people being there to run the stairs, we were in this massive stadium virtually alone. It was eerily quiet.  The markings on the field have been taken off for the season so the turf is bare and you can only barely see where the markings used to be. It was, to me, in some way, like this place of excitement and life was bowing its metaphorical head in solace with me and I wanted to just breathe it all in.

 I made my way to the 50 yard line. 

50 yard line

The stadium being so quiet and so still - it allowed for some time of reflection. I sat a few rows up so I could take in the vastness of the field.
I pulled out my phone and played one of our wedding songs.  I invited grief to go ahead and hit me.  I wanted to lean into it in this place - the place he asked me to spend forever with him.
  

Yes, I cried; that's nothing new.  

But something else happened there in that stadium at that very moment.  

I felt an actual, physical release happening. It was like God was peeling off this grief from around my heart. He was leading me out of the valley of the shadow of death.  He was restoring my soul. And I felt like Kyle was right there with me telling me that it was okay to live life.  It was okay to be happy.  It was okay to allow myself to feel actual joy.  It was almost like for the past ten months all of the times I've felt happiness (because I have felt happy many times) I would stop myself from feeling TOO much happiness because, in some way, if I allowed myself to feel TOO happy then it meant that I wasn't grieving the loss of my husband and maybe that meant I didn't love him as much as I should have.  BUT nothing could be further from the truth.  

Yes, grief is a souvenir of love.  But, the amount of grief I feel is not correlative at all to the amount of love that was and is there.  And in that moment it all made sense to me.  The greatest testament I can give to my late husband is to allow myself to feel joy, to feel happiness, to feel peace...to feel! To live.  And it was there in the place where our forever started that I felt him giving me permission to do just that.  I felt him releasing me from that cloud of grief.  I will miss Kyle every single day for as long as I have breath.  But, it is okay for me to move forward. 

(click to enlarge)

 

I felt peace.  So much peace there in that place. And walking out of there I felt the weight coming off of my shoulders.  

There is no time frame to grief.  And I'm not saying that my journey has come to a close (not even close)! But what I am publicly proclaiming is that the fog of grief that has been around me has lifted.  I feel as if I am coming out of the valley.  Psalm 23:4 talks about the valley of the shadow of death.  But if you jump back a verse, Psalm 23:3 says that "he restoreth my soul". And that is what exactly has happened.  My soul has been restored.  

Right after leaving the stadium we made a trek to Wal-Mart to stock up on orange and blue everything. It was late when we were coming back to the car.  The part of the lot we parked in was emptying out. But there was a vehicle parked next to us.  The hood was raised and a man was standing there looking at the engine.  

Let me pause here to say that believe it or not I am shy.  I'm introverted.  I typically don't start conversations.  But, before I knew what was happening my mouth flew open and I made some comment to the man about wishing I knew anything about cars so that I could offer some kind of help.  I asked if he knew what was wrong with it.  He told us that he and his wife had driven down from Atlanta that day.  He had lost his job in Atlanta (a construction job) that same day and they had started having issues with their car overheating. We stood there visiting with them for a second and, I kid you not, at the same exact time God moved in both mine and Erika's heart and we reached for our wallets at the same exact moment.  Pretty cool.  Obviously we didn't have much to offer them and they weren't actually even asking us for anything. Erika mentioned how if anyone knows that God can provide even when it seems impossible it would be me.  And I actually got a chance to share just a part of my testimony from the past ten months with perfect strangers.  I wasn't nervous.  I wasn't shy.  I wasn't introverted. In that moment I felt so much joy at what God has been doing in my life and I wanted to tell them all about it! God used me...shy, introverted Julie...to tell Rufus and Sharice that what Satan intends for harm, God can absolutely turn around and use it for good.  Their sweet faces lit up.  Sharice started crying.  We were all getting pretty emotional.  

Then.  I did something that I never, ever, ever do.  Ever! I asked if we could pray with them.  Trust me, I couldn't even believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. They said absolutely.  So, we stood there, held hands, and prayed in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Gainesville, Florida. Rufus gave each of us the biggest hugs before we got back on the road. Erika and I spoke afterwards about how much of a pull we felt towards them.  It was something that I've never experienced before. 

God has given me a story to tell.  He has given me a testimony to share.  He has blessed me with this opportunity to tell others about Him and about how His hands have worked in my life. I have a desire to share my testimony. To share my story. If my story can bring any kind of hope to just one single person, then it hasn't been for naught.  I am excited, you guys.  I am excited to see how God is going to use me, use my story, for His kingdom!

That day/night in Gainesville has forever changed me.  Just the day before I was asking God to wash over me like the waves of the ocean.  And just like that - He answered.  

(click to enlarge)

This trip wasn't just "relaxing".  This trip was necessary. This trip brought about closure for me.  This trip brought a peace that's been missing. My heart feels whole again.     

*I generally prefer NIV, NKJV, or ESV translations of the Bible for the purpose of study - but there is something to me that feels so sacred and so intimate about the King James Version - so I like to read it while going back and forth with the other three.