Filling Up So We Can Pour Out Once Again

I have to fill up before I can pour out.

This is the prayer I have been asking people to pray for me this week. It is how I try to live every week.

This week we/I love my sweet son-in-love, my husband lost his son, my daughter lost her husband, my grandgirls lost their dad, my kids lost a brother. These crushed hearts as well as all his friends and family are in need of an embrace even when it can't be sweet Hector's. 

This feels so familiar. Sitting with Dorothy, Elissa and now Ami takes us back to losing Elissa's dad almost twelve years ago. Each son, brother, father took their lives. What I know is that their actions were not selfish or cruel. They both loved hard and would not have caused this ripple of brokenness intentionally. Such similar men, such similar sons oh how I grieve. Hector was so loving to Ron and I and embraced us as his own. It has never been awkward but matter of fact that Dorothy's first husband's family became a second set of inlaws. Hector's heart was able to include all of us

 

 This has long been an image that I carry to remind myself that I need to fill up to pour out God's love on others. what I didn't recognize was that this image just doesn't quite get ti right. I am not filled with a trickle but need to be immersed

 in the love of all the people God has placed in my life to check in, step up, listen patiently and be her for me. 

A complete saturation of love, hope, kindness and all the connections I can be filled with are what is keeping me together. Yesterday was a day of counseling, healing, comforting, and praying. Understanding this tragedy may never come but embracing each other with the love we have for Hector and his girls and his love for us is where we need to focus. Families were merged by Dorothy and Hector's love. 

 

From day one Hector became a father to our Elissa and was elated when Amalia was born. He always spoke of his girls. What an inclusive spirit Hector had. He and Ryan never met a stranger and have passed that on to their girls. My smile is from picturing Ryan and Hector wrapped in the love they shared for each of us. Hector always said he wished he had met Ryan. Now he has and I asked Dorothy if her ears were burning from the stories they were no doubtedly sharing. I'm so glad Hector was a father to Elissa. I'm sure Ryan is thanking him and letting him know that others will step into Ami's life and she will be loved. The love of these two dads never leaves but grows as the girls grow. 

So much loss is hard. So much love is the gift that makes th hard so real. 

The sharing their love gets us through. Clinging to one another through our tears just adds to what we can pour onto one another. Drenched in His love and the love of those He has placed here with us.

 

In Him,

Joyful

12-9-21