Healing the Heart

My sister passed away about eighteen months ago. And my brother-in-law is ready to move on with his life. He has found someone new and has asked her to marry him. I understand his need to move forward and I don’t want him to be alone. But I was still a little apprehensive about having the new fiancé at our family Thanksgiving celebration. My brother in law and my sister were married for thirty-five plus years. So, he is family and always will be. However, his need to move forward puts the whole family in a position to move forward as well. And I’m not so sure that my heart is ready for that.

The night before Thanksgiving, I had an urgent feeling that I needed to find a picture for a friend. I thought the picture might be in my memory box. Now this box was a gift from my sister in 2014, when I was going thru my cancer journey. I haven’t even looked in this box for a very long time. But when I opened the box on the very top was a “Happy Thanksgiving” card and a letter my sister wrote to me back in 1982, about six months after she and her husband had gotten married. I’m not kidding; it was on the very top. I didn’t remember it at all. And I sure didn’t remember putting it in this box. But there it was right on top! I cried hard. Not only because I miss my sister, but because the Lord knows how much I miss her. And He sent me to find Thanksgiving greetings from her sent in 1982!! Finding and reading those gave me a massive amount of peace and hope. The Bible verses for this story have come up multiple times the past few weeks; no doubt they need to be shared. The Lord cares and will heal your broken heart. Just be still…and listen.

Psalms 34:17-19 The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.