The Real Grinch

I woke up to a new week.

A busy, busy week.

A week filled with those wonderful holiday activities we love and those never-ending chores that we don't really love. The never ending doctor visits adds its normal light frustration and concern.
This morning, to borrow a phrase from Nan, "Christmas threw up in my living room." It has looked that way for days. I have never had a time slot long enough to finish decorating.

My laundry room grew a mountain over the weekend. If it continues at this rate, I may need a professional guide or crampons to conquer it.

My single sox must have eaten all the food in my cupboard before they ran away.

Monday looms like an unfriendly foe in my heart and mind.

But, really, it isn't just the house and the demands on my life that made me not want to face the day or the week.

Four years ago today, my husband and I lost a child to miscarriage. I had this weird notion that someday I would "get over it." I thought maybe I wouldn't have the bouts of weeping  nobody can enter in. You never "get over it."


The loved ones' absence, instead of presence, graces every moment, every day and ever celebration, an uninvited guest that refuses to give up their seat around the family table.  Sorrow and loss is the real  Grinch that wants to steal CHRISTmas and every other holiday. The real Grinch can steal something as small as a normal grocery shopping trip, when it ends in tears and a retreat out of the store.

The Lord all too well understands the loss of a child. In Proverbs 30:15-16, He tells us that are four things that NEVER stop their devastation.

 "There are three things that are never satisfied, 

Four never say, “Enough!”:

The grave,

The barren womb,

The earth that is not satisfied with water—

And the fire never says, “Enough!”

He compares the loss of a loved one and the emptiness of a womb to the horrific natural disasters of drought and fire. He knows the agony of loss and of suffering.

The treatment for all four is virtually the same.  Drought and fire need to be saturated with water from the Heavens and the empty heart and empty womb need to be saturated with Living water from the Heavens.

It's easy to see the morning as an impossibility to face, and to be negative. I choose to let these many things be the reason I face today and this week with faith and grace, not the excuse to ignore my world.

A quick Word study on "morning" gave me the Living water I need for the drought of my aching heart.

Psalm 5:3
My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD;

In the morning I will direct it to You,

And I will look up.

Psalm 59:16

But I will sing of Your power;

Yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning;

For You have been my defense

And refuge in the day of my trouble.

Psalm 92:1-2

It is good to give thanks to the LORD,

And to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;

To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning,

And Your faithfulness every night,

Psalm 119:147
I rise before the dawning of the morning,

And cry for help;

I hope in Your word.

So, this morning, I'm not letting the Grinch of sorrow and loss steal the joy of CHRIST from my life.


I'm seeking His Living Waters to quench the natural disasters of my heart.

*****