Ahh my dear friend,
I'm so glad I can come here and unload when I get in the feels.
Story time... My parents could NOT sing. No debate, not even a little. Neither of them. I have inherited this trait, sad to say. I love to sing, but will only do it when I'm alone. In the car, at home. I think sometimes my cat even gives me the side eye.
When I was a child, we started going to church when I was in the 1st grade. We didn't go at all before that. We had moved in an area with a country church, and some of the members would come over and talk to my parents. They started sending me. I think they sent my brother as well, I can't remember. (it's been a day or two....) Anyway, eventually my parents started going. We went twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday night. We were involved in just about everything. It was a very small church when we started. Normal attendance was in the 50s every Sunday. It slowly was growing. I haven't been for a very long time.
I've been doing well keeping up reading the New Testament every day so far this year. A lot of times when I'm reading, I will have some instrumental hymns in the background. I tend to lose focus easily, and it has helped. I just got the music started, but hadn't started reading. I started singing along to the instrumentals, I felt kind of bad because these were the weekly fare for years but I couldn't remember all the words. Instead of trying to remember, I just found them and started playing them with singing. Boy did the memories come flooding back. Standing next to my mom, all of us trying to sing. We felt it in our hearts, it just didn't translate to our mouths. Some of my fondest memories were in that church. My mom passed away when I was 10. It's hard to type when you have tears streaming down your face. I can still feel her hand in mine. It's been over 50 years, but I still miss my mom. At least her and dad are together now, with my daughter. I often wonder how different my life would have been if she wouldn't have passed so young.
This is why I don't handle grief well. I'm not grieving for the person that passed, I'm grieving for the family they left behind.
It's hard to be an empath.
God Bless. Be kind to everyone. You never know what someone is going through.
