Oh, there is nothing like a good ol’ thunderstorm and a hard rain on this old roof to bring me into my cozy “safe place”. As I sit in my familiar chair at the front window, I can see through the veil of rain to the far hillside. The neighbor across the way lost his culvert drain last spring and spent much of the summer building and hand carrying five gallon buckets of gravel up the hill to fill in around the new drainage pipe he laid. Now, there is a new waterfall to watch when the rain pours. The white splash of the water on the rocks below glows like a beacon in the gloomy darkness of the storm. Thunder crashes and the skies open and just as quickly, it drops back to the gentle rain we’ve had all morning.

Working on the computer here at the farm is a dicey proposition this time of year. The electric can go off at a moment’s notice and be off for days at a time. We had quite a wind blow through here a couple of hours before I wrote this. That can easily drop a tree or even a branch over the lines and put us out of business till the guys with the chainsaws arrive. Mr. FixIt was here and when he drove back to the Ponderosa yesterday morning, there was a huge tree down across the road about a mile and a half from the farm. When I saw that wind gust through this little holler, I just prayed God would keep the trees from tumbling down on this old house…and our old heads!

Seeing the new spring green creep its way up the hillside and filling in the lawns and fields reminds me we are inching ever closer to the warm days of sweet tea and porches. How we see the seasons is highly individualized. Some love winter, some hate it. Some cope by skiing, some by fleeing. It’s the same with grief. We each approach it in our own way and what works for one may not work for another.

As I was sitting here writing, a notification popped up on my screen in one of the widow’s groups I follow. A woman had posed a question. Someone had suggested she might benefit from seeing a counselor and she wanted our opinions. The discussion that followed involved a lot of differing opinions. When I offered that indeed grief therapy can help some who feel stuck, there was one woman who kept firing back that you can’t “treat” grief. I dealt with her in a loving way and told her I totally understood that talking with her widowed peers works for her as a way to cope and work through this journey we didn’t ask for. However, I was adamant in this…there is nothing wrong with seeking the help of a trained professional if you are feeling overwhelmed or stuck. Therapy is not intended to become a lifelong occupation. It is meant to give you a safe place to open up about your feelings in front of someone who is trained to watch for signs of severe depression or hints of thoughts of suicide. In my particular case, I was suffering from PTSD and received EMDR treatments which greatly improved the flashback and panic attacks I was experiencing. I am not a trained professional. I cannot give medical advise, I can only tell you what has helped me. I can listen. I can empathize. And I can share. How you walk this out is highly individualized. I’m just here to offer you encouragement and shine God’s light on the path ahead. We don’t “treat grief”…we experience it…and sometimes that experience includes talking to a mental health professional. There is no shame in that. ❤️

“Our sorrows are all, like ourselves, mortal. There are no immortal sorrows for immortal souls. They come, but blessed be God, they also go. Like birds of the air, they fly over our heads. But they cannot make their abode in our souls. We suffer today, but we shall rejoice tomorrow.” Charles Spurgeon

““Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7:7-8‬ ‭NIV‬‬