Thank you Father for your faithfulness, loving kindness, and answer to our prayers. Thank you for the comfort you provide directly and through your children. Thank you all for your kindness and prayers.

I thought I would continue to blog as there is much to say about the grieving process and the love of God and His children. I hope to blog maybe weekly or bimonthly or so.

I want to thank all of you for attending Theresa’s Celebration of life, for your kind comments, for your continued prayer for our family, and for all the comforting cards. I am overwhelmed by the number of people who have taken time out of their day to either pray, write cards, or come to the celebration of life. We are greatly loved, which has been obviously recognized by our family. The more love is given the way, the more love permeates your whole being. It is a paradox that the more love is given away, the more love you have. There is nothing else in this world that works this way, everything else is limited and degrades.

I ended up taking two weeks off work. With my grieving, there was also much to occupy my time. After Theresa passed early Tuesday morning, October 8th, I felt it necessary to move fairly quickly with the services for her. We were able to get the death certificate filled out fairly quickly, was able to work with the funeral home and cemetery on Tuesday to line up what needed to be done to accomplish this time line. With help from family, we wrote the obituary, things about Theresa for the Celebration of life, lined up the video by Ciara, and put together the video collage. It made for a busy week. Two of our boys who were in Oregon came home on Wednesday and our oldest Friday at noon. We had Theresa’s graveside service Friday afternoon with our pastor, a military honor guard from McCord AFB, family members’ and members of our small group from church. It was a very touching service. Saturday was the Celebration of life, a link to it is on the previous blog, which many of you came and shared this with us. Sunday the kids and I and Matthew’s friend went out for breakfast, had a devotional on Psalms 91, and a time of prayer. Then our oldest went back to school and the younger two boys left a little later in the day for bible school.

Sunday evening was just the two of us, our daughter and me. I am finding evenings are the hardest. I have been keeping busy during the day, but the evenings when we used to relax together and have our talks are really hard now. I can say though, God was so good to provide a daughter to us, for she has been good company. Otherwise it would be a large empty house that would probably make the grieving even worse. The dogs have helped too.

A day or two before Theresa passed, we talked about Boo, the dog she had gotten me, and that I probably would have her keep me company on the bed at nights. She knew that is what I would need, otherwise the bed would be too large, too cold, too empty. Boo has helped.

This week I kept busy organizing Theresa’s things, and decluttering. There are things that are Theresa’s alone, that I felt best to give away sooner than later such as her clothes, makeup, craft items, and the like. I could have waited longer, but as I had taken another week off and because it felt like the right thing for me to do, I was busy all week. My mother came over a few of those days to help. She has been a great help and support, and has had us over multiple times to eat – I think she thinks we will starve otherwise.

Today members of our care group came over and helped me with organizing Theresa’s clothes and other items to take to three different thrift shops in the area. It was so helpful to have them come, and help me with this difficult task. Theresa kept clothes from way back when we were dating. She had great taste and there were many comments on the beautiful outfits she had put together. I am blessed to be able to share her superb choices in clothing, makeup and other items to others in the community who can enjoy them as well.

There is no doubt over time healing occurs. In the last week of Theresa’s life we wept together and alone at night. The weeping is less frequent now and not nearly as intense. I have felt comforted and loved. I have felt your prayers and God answering them with increasing peace and quieting of my soul. He has met me in my quiet times. I don’t grieve for Theresa, for her hope is fulfilled and praise be to God for that hope, for that promise. I grieve for the kids and I. For 26 years Theresa and I did everything together, we shared responsibilities, we also had different roles too with the kids. Mom’s are nurturing, always thinking about their kids.

I grieved our kids loss of their mother and not only what she meant to them, but what she did with them. I didn’t take into account her investment in others, and other’s investment in us. We have a number of people who are filling in where Theresa left off. A classmate’s family is taking our daughter to school, my brother-in-law is instructing our daughter to drive, now that she has her permit, others are befriending her. The boys have friends and their families looking out for them as well. We are the recipients of an abundance of love. I am humbled and grateful to you for taking in our family as part of yours.

My parents have been an integral part of are family from the day we moved to Centralia, 20 years ago. The kids grew up always around them, and my parents took them on trips with them, made cookies with them, were engaged in all their activities. Mom is keeping that engagement going, by the meals, helping us out, and keeping contact with the boys through regular texting. Again we have been blessed.

God has provided. Roman’s Chapter 8 explains this. We have been given the Holy Spirit. The spirit of Christ lives in us. With the Spirit helping us be spiritually minded we gain life and peace. There is no comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The joyful anticipation deepens. We wait with eager hope for that day. God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose. God is for us, who can ever be against us? Nothing can separate us from Him, not trouble, not hard times. Nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support of our family.