Halloween was always such a fun holiday in our home. With Julian’s birthday the next day, we combined the two events and celebrated in big ways. Our yearly parties involved friends, family, two kinds of chili (the boring kind for Noy and the kids and fancy kind for me and guests), photobooths and trick-or-treating, of course. Julian was always a superhero when he was young and often wore his costume the entire month of November.  The house was over the top decorated and filled with a lot of life and a lot of sugar.

Yesterday, I found myself mourning the fact that there’s no one left to make fancy chili for anymore. Mourning that the fun parties faded away a few years ago when the girls left home, and Julian wanted to spend his first Halloween night out with friends. Sad that I didn’t put up a single decoration or buy even one bag of candy to hand out this year. It’s so easy for me to get stuck missing what was, mourning the traditions that are no more. But in doing so, I miss the joy of today and the hope of tomorrow. Lying in bed last night, I asked God to renew my mind in this area and to give me peace in the days ahead.

This morning, I woke up with a verse in my head,

“Look, I am about to do something new;
even now it is coming. Do you not see it?
Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:19

I looked up the verse and the preceding verse says, “Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder the things of the past…”

Ah, Lord, I hear you. So today and tomorrow, as we celebrate Julian, though we miss him with every fiber of our being, I am choosing to be thankful for the beautiful times that we were blessed to have. I’m finding the joy in what this day will hold with our Monopoly Man (Wesley's costume this year), and I’m looking forward with expectant hope, trusting that what lies ahead will be far greater than all that was in the past.  How can I be so sure? Because if Christ was willing to lay down His very life on my behalf, why would He withhold any good thing from me? He is making all things new, friends! He promised it and there’s no reason to believe otherwise.

The peace that passes understanding has surely been upon me today. I pray that you may experience it too, and that your grief of what is no more doesn’t overshadow the joy of the gift of today, and your hope of a bright future.

Happy Halloween and Happy Birthday to our Julian.

Xo

Dawn