In the Groove

She had her daily routine and it worked: get up, shower, get dressed, eat, go to work, make dinner for her husband, exercise. She met with friends, took trips, mixing up the routine, but mostly she moved through her days with ease and a sense of the familiar. It brought comfort and security, so much so that she never really thought about it. She lived in the groove; her life was good and she was happy.

Then one of those great big events, like a bad scratch in a favorite record album, knocked her off her feet: her mother, who had been considering hospice, died unexpectedly. It wasn’t supposed to happen so quickly; her mom was supposed to live long enough for all her children to get to visit and argue about what kind of care would be best. She was supposed to be by her mom’s bedside, comforting her with prayer as she slipped quietly into the arms of waiting angels.

Shaken horribly from her comfortable groove, everything was shocking and sad and unsettling. There was the drive home and the funeral to plan with her siblings. There was the harsh reality that she would never see her mother alive again. The pain and sadness and guilt of grief made her days a journey of difficult steps. How can there be a groove when it’s hard to walk?

She doesn’t know it yet because the loss is too fresh, too painful, but she will find her groove again. She has the love and support of family and friends and coworkers. Most importantly, she has her faith. Even in the sadness her heart knows that God is real and heaven exists and one day she and her mom will be reunited. She holds on to the promise of the Resurrection and all that it means. She gratefully embraces the prayers offered for her and for her mom. She’ll find her groove again, but it will be different. Sometimes she’ll be in the groove, but a memory, a word, a song, a picture, will make her skip a beat and her steps will falter for a while. But by God’s grace, she’ll find her groove again, and He will walk beside her, holding her up, giving her hope.