Hanging in hope

This Sunday as I was standing in church during the worship time and the girl on the stage was singing so full of happiness, she asked the audience "Aren't you full of joy?" As she was saying those words and everyone around me erupted in clapping, tears started pouring out of me. The dam finally broke. I could not sing, there were no words in me to pray, I could not look at the screen to see what the words to the song were. I was just standing there are crying and as she kept asking the same question in different variations, all I could think about that was that these last few weeks happiness and joy is exactly what is lacking. While life goes on normally around me and I laugh at jokes and go on with my job, on the inside it's been a dark time.

For months and months it's all been mostly internal. People expect you to move on, or at least to not bring it up as it is not the most pleasant dinner topic. You are sort of expected to get a grip on your emotions. I think I did it really well for a while until I started thinking about it all and so many details came to me that made me feel so lost. When it first happened, it was all a big shock, then we were traveling, then there were huge floods, then I thought I was over it all, then we were hosting parents and the day after they left, I sort of fell apart.

Here is a verse that I have given to women who've had miscarriages (which, now that I think must have been very insulting and insensitive because there is nothing that brings comfort at that time). I found it comforting when the pastor went on the stage and read this verse.

Ps 27:13-14 I'm sure now I'll see God's goodness
in the exuberant earth.
Stay with God!
Take heart. Don't quit.
I'll say it again:
Stay with God.
(The Message)

PS 27:13 I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
(NIV)

So I am hanging in hope.