My New Library

I began this post as I do my other posts, through prayer. I did a silly thing in the last post, I put Part 1 in the name. Now I do have an idea for Part 2, but I wasn't sure if this is the right time for it. So, I prayed about it. I asked God what should I write about next while I was getting ready one day. I went about my business, and next thing I know I am thinking about a chapter in a book I read called #Blessed.

This particular chapter is how I remember that I want to write some posts about the books that helped me process my grief. If you know me, you know that I am a reader. I mean really, I am a librarian, can you be a librarian without being a reader?! Reading is how I process. So as you can see in the picture, after Evelyn went to Heaven I curated a new section in my home library, and it is my belief that God put these books into my life to give me comfort with the different things I was struggling with. There are specific moments for each book that I know God was using them to comfort me just as He said He would.

In the early weeks after Evelyn joined God and Jesus in Heaven, I really struggled with what I could have done differently to stop this from happening to Evelyn. So many what ifs ran through my mind. What if I had been in her room at the moment she stopped breathing? What if she were still sleeping in our room? What if I had one of those really expensive monitors that you put on their feet to monitor their breathing? So many thoughts of how I could have saved my little girl. I would have stayed up all night long with her in my arms if it meant I could have saved her.

At that time I was reading, Through the Eyes of a Lion: Facing the Impossible Pain Finding Incredible Power by Levi Lusko. It was nice to read a book by someone who had also lost a daughter and how his family survived it. But it also got hard to read. You see, Levi is a pastor. He seemed so much closer to God than I was. He, with the help of his young family, even planted a church! I couldn't help but compare myself to him. I went through periods of days where I could not read the book because it was giving me more anxiety than it was comforting me. Another thing you need to know about me is that I like finish a book I am reading before I begin another one. So I was stuck on this book, somewhere between not wanting to read it but wanting to finish it before I start another one.

While I was struggling with the what ifs, one Sunday before church I felt it on my heart to read this book. I still didn't want to, but I felt this unexplainable push to read the book. So I began reading. I finished chapter 7 and started reading chapter 8. Another thing you need to know about me is that while I am a reader, I am not very good at it. I get distracted easily, not only with noises, but even in just my thoughts, and I have to reread what I just read ALL THE TIME. But I still love it... So true to form, I got distracted while reading the beginning of chapter 8, then all of a sudden I was about to turn the page and had no idea what I had just read. Typical.

So with a new determination to stay focused, I reread the first page of chapter 8. It was a story of a family who's son went to Heaven on an airplane. The boy was asleep in his parent's arms, and all of a sudden he stopped breathing. They noticed this right away and did everything they could. Everything I would have been able to do if I was in the room with Evelyn at the moment she stopped breathing. Unfortunately, even though his parents did everything they could, the boy is in Heaven just the same as Evelyn. I realized that God was telling me through this story to stop the what if game. Even if I had been there at the moment she stopped breathing, just as this family was with their son, there was nothing I could have done.

Then, to further drive home this point something else happened at church that day. My family and I stayed after the service ended chatting with people. Our pastor came over and told me he had something weighing on his heart that he really wanted to tell me. Then he said either said (this is one of those moments that I know the gist of what happened but can't remember the specifics), "You did nothing wrong" or "There was nothing you could have done differently." God used my pastor to even further to drive home the point that I could not have done anything differently, so stop with the what ifs.

There is no changing His plan. God was using this book to tell me to let go of the mom guilt, because this was His will. As hard as it may be to accept, I could not have changed anything.

-The Blessed Mourner