Everything Feels So Empty

Today I'm linking up with Gypsy Mama for Five Minute Friday.  I don't usually post on Fridays, but recently I've been trying to work on freewriting and opportunities like Five Minute Friday provide that arena for me.  When I saw the word "empty" on Gypsy Mama's post, I knew right away I had to write today!

Go.

Everything feels so empty.  Our family has recently been slammed with a diagnosis of an illness in my husband's brother that has devastated us.  We've been travelling recently to Jim and Helen's home about five hours away to help with downsizing as they prepare to move.  Jim's health requires this move, as Helen can't keep the pace caring for him and their home too.

As they point to what we should take for ourselves, an emptiness pervades the room.  How can we take what has been their treasure?  How can we not pay them something for a piece so valuable?  And yet, they insist.  We come home with boxes of their treasures to unpack, some to keep, some to pass on to other family, some to donate somewhere.  Everything feels empty, like we're pouring all the water from the pitcher.  

Jim's illness is emptying him out too.  He was diagnosed a year ago with Parkinson's but last week we learned from a specialist that it's Parkinson's with Lewy body dementia.  The dementia has attacked Jim's mind like a freight train without brakes.  The person we knew is gone, empty of much thought and recognition.  How can it be this man is becoming empty?  Or is he?  We don't know.

But God's promise is that with him in our lives we will never be empty.  If that's so, how is it we feel empty, we see empty, we sense empty?  It's because there will always be trials and tribulations, sorrows and grief, struggles that cause us to feel empty.  Yet, if we reach for God's hand and love, we will be filled again and again, and capable of moving forward away from the emptiness.

"'Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone
who believes in me this way, just as the Scripture says.'"
John 7:38 (The Message)

Stop.

[Images and verses added after 5 minutes.]

Photo credit:  www.ecoki.com

See you over at Gypsy Mama's for Five Minute Friday.  Give it a try!