It has been a while since we wrote.  This hasn’t been because there isn’t anything to say.  Things are just different now.  There are lots of things to say but they are not organized and also are not urgent in the way they were when Henryk was alive.

Another reason not to write has been realizing the need to answer the question, “How are you doing?”  It’s not a bad question.  It is a very kind and caring question.  We so appreciate the love behind it.  But it is not a good question for us right now.  It’s just so broad of a question for our narrow abilities right now.

So instead of talking about how we are doing we can talk about what we are doing.  We are hoping.  We are remembering, every second of every hour of every day.  We are missing, every second of every hour of every day.  We are crying and sorrowing.  We are working and playing.  We still laugh even though now we feel so old and I specifically am so very, very tired.

It already feels like a long time ago that Henryk died in bed with us.  And that makes me feel like someone is thrusting their whole arm into my chest and grabbing onto and squeezing my heart.  It is a physical pain.

At first after Henryk died it felt as though nothing I would ever do again would be as important as what I had been doing for those five and a half months.  But really, that is not true.  What God has given us to do is what is important to do.  And as long as we are alive he is still giving us things to do.  So I am finding value in the things of life because it is the life in which God has me.

Each new task that I complete is a small victory and a small defeat.  I am happy that I can do things like go to the gym and work out.  It feels great to move.  But each time I go I think about why I can go.  I can go because he is gone.  And it makes me hate going.

The point is not to move on and be fine.  That’s not the goal.  It’s not about how we went through a hard time but overcame it and afterwards did better than ever.  That is a very romaticized view of suffering that our culture promotes.  We aren’t planning on that.  Things are too messy and too real for that.  Henryk was too awesome for that.  But at the same time, God is too awesome to lead us into unending sorrow.  There is a limit to our sadness because of our hope.

Psalm 42:11 says, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”  This kind of hope is an eager expectation.  A knowing that God saves souls and has eternity in store for them. Knowing that although things in this life seem not to be as they should God will make all things right for those who believe in Him.  Matthew 7:24-25 says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”