Another Anniversary

  This Sunday the team started the hike up Mount Kenya. As a disappointing turn of events, I got sick Saturday night and was basically asleep Sunday and Monday. When I woke up today I realized I had totally forgotten the date. Yesterday was the anniversary of my oldest brother's death. Thirteen years.
  The last month, I have felt heavy with sadness. I miss him. And I'm sad that when my family gathers together there will always be a piece missing. I remember thinking at the two year mark how crazy it seemed that one day Clayborne would be gone 10 years. I couldn't fathom what it would be like when I was much, much older and probably in a place where no one would know that part of my story, or have ever known him. Sitting just past the 10 year mark, the shock of grief has abated, but there are days when I feel like I am back on that river bank; or in the car driving to the hospital; or pulling up to the house with innumerable amounts of people there to support our family.
  Each year it seems there is something particularly difficult. At one point, I really struggled with remembering his face and his voice. I felt like I was forgetting him. Then I struggled with the fact that I knew him as a kid, and there was so much about who he was that I didn't know. More recently, I struggled with the realization that most of the people I meet won't have known him and that his life is something I have to share in order for people to know about it. Sometimes I grow weary of that, and I think it comes from a place that is tired of engaging with the brokenness of this life.
  Since being in Nairobi I have seen and heard so much brokenness. The struggle to hope is real and difficult. I have realized that rarely do I celebrate my brothers life. I often mourn his loss, and hope for that eventual reunion. But I don't celebrate the gift of his life.
  It is so hard for me to rest in the Father's arms and receive the hope of Jesus. It's hard for me to admit my pain to the Father in the same way that it is difficult for me to rejoice with the Father over the life of my brother who is with the Father in heaven. How do I grieve the brokenness I have experienced, made real by my brother's death, while celebrating the work of a great God who gives life? How do I celebrate Clayborne's life while mourning his death?
 This is one of those times that I want to perfectly handle, but I am overwhelmed by the realization that I CANNOT respond and interact with reality in a perfect manner. I can only know how to respond with the guidance of the Spirit, the grace of the Father and the blood of Christ.

  I miss Clayborne, and by God's grace and guidance I long to say that in sadness and in joy.

Isaiah 40:6b-8

All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it;

surely people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades, 

but the word of our God will stand forever.