Sometimes we just groan. Sometimes words cannot be found. The heaviness of this broken world renders us speechless. Is evil, illness, injustice swallowing us?
Sometimes we just groan.
Our Advocate groans as well. He divinely sighs, rescuing the broken one who has no hope of escaping his condition.
He yearns for our likeness to the Son. He intercedes for our eternal security.
He groans on our behalf, offering our silent weight to the Heavens.
Sometimes we just groan.

The probate petition arrives in the mail. It might as well be stamped: Final.
God, I don't think I have the energy to travel this road of rememberance again.
Grief sucks the life out of me. Yet, You remind me that You go before me and that You hold all things together. So the journey begins with one trusting step after another while You lead.
Each painful memory of being a second thought will be soothed with a sweet reminder that You loved me first!

I launch the dvd and I melt.
The heart, so guarded, yields to memories.
I struggle to seize the sweet ones, but I know they simmer deep in my being.
Little girl hugging daddy's neck...once upon a time, there must have been affection.
Lasting images collapse the reserve and the dam breaks.
I gasp and choke with pain and regret for recent photos scream his numbered days.
Did this weathered man's heart yearn for the sweet ones as well?

"I still love you."
Words on a birthday card; words that sear my soul.
A phone call, girded with prayer and hope for reconciliation, fails to connect.
Again, disappointment bruises my heart.
Dial once again? Or simply let hope find its way on parchment wings?
Time runs out...wavering misses the deadline.
Guilt punches me again and again. Did his heart cry regret and yearn for one last conversation?
Betrayal fades slowly...forgiveness often comes too late.
Can affection reach the heavens?

Words refuse to flow tonight; only toss and tumble from my pain.
I stand before my God small and fragile. My friend says it's the little girl in me; Joyce Landorf describes it as the little bird who has lost her song.
Broken, hurt, empty is all I can muster.
A frail charge who desperately yearns to be loved, but finds the prize beyond her reach.
Love can't even slip through outstretched fingers when love has never cradled them.
Stark reality leaves me orphaned and lost.
Fatherly love should swallow us, but sometimes the fathers can't find such gifting within them.
My hope crushed now that the flame no longer flickers.
Tonight I struggle to feel Heaven's parental embrace.
I know it abounds, but grief blurs the senses.