I Don't Know What to Pack

I've been trying to get ready to leave all day.

Finishing up book keeping work, making lunch, stopping here and there to wait for the latest tears to dry, the latest pangs of loss to pass.

My suitcase lies open with a few items inside......make-up.  Running clothes.  Running shoes.  Bible.

My kids keep asking how much to pack for themselves, what kind of clothes they'll need, and how long we'll be gone.

I don't know.


I can't think.


My head hurts.


I keep trying to just do the next thing.  I don't know how long we'll be there.  I don't know how long we'll stay.  There's not much food in her house and we'll need to go to Piggly Wiggly when we arrive.  I pack a bag of grocery items that I just bought yesterday.  Snacks.  Fresh produce that will spoil if we don't take it with us.  Bananas.......

Banana Pound Cake.  

A treat that my kids  love to have for breakfast, for a snack, for dessert.....pretty much any time I'll let them eat it.  It's one of my Granny's recipes.....one of the favorites that I now make for my family, tweaked ever so slightly to make it healthier, but it's still her recipe all the same.

I was baking it on Friday evening.  I had recently taken it out of the oven and was letting it cool when I read the email that she wasn't going to pull through and that she was fading fast.  I went downstairs to take it out of the pan and thought I was going to vomit from the sweet smell - usually so pleasant & comforting ~ and  from the emotions that threatened to overflow and I tried desperately not to spill any tears on it as I sliced some pieces for my husband and children.  They were watching a movie and I breathed a prayer of thanks as I handed them the bread......it was dark in the room and they couldn't see my face, couldn't see the tracks of my tears or evidence of them in my eyes.  They didn't know yet and I didn't want to say it.

The tears come again as I wrap some up to take with us.  We're leaving in the morning to go to a place that is just as much home as my current address is.  In some ways, maybe even more so.   This will be the hardest trip that I've ever traveled there, every mile so ingrained in me that I think I could drive it in my sleep.

I look at my clothes and I can't decide which ones to take.  "This shouldn't be a difficult task", I tell myself.  "Just pick some out and be done with it".  And I move them around on the hangers, pull them out of drawers and then put them back, finally putting one or two things in the suitcase along with the few items already there.  But it's not enough and I can't decide.  I feel so stupid.

I don't know what to pack.  


I can't do this, Lord......I don't want to do this.








"You have to.......but you are not alone.  I am with you", is His reply that I hear so surely, spoken directly to my heart.

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." 

(Isaiah 41:10)

I know His Word to be true and I know that it will get me through.  Holding on to it now.