surviving the date just to realize it was the meaning of that date I was trying to escape

(don't forget to pause the jukebox on the top left to hear the words to this song above, then click play)
I heard this song on the radio tonight and have heard it before but not really listened to the words. I really love the message. "Before a heartache can touch my life, it has to go through your hands." God knows everything we are going through. He doesn't cause bad things to happen to us, but He knows when we are hurting and allows us to suffer. Nothing surprises God. He never leaves our side through it though. She sings "No matter what, I 'm gonna love you, no matter what I'm gonna need you.... I'll trust you no matter what!" that is paraphrased, but it is what I have to do. I'm putting my life in God's hands, I am trusting God to be my hope and my strength.
Some of you may know that yesterday, August 26th would have been Eric and my 15th Anniversary. I have been aware of this date coming up all month. My plan of attack was to keep myself busy the whole day so that I would not have to think about it and be sad or lonely. While I was eating breakfast, I started to tear up so I kept moving and got the kids set and headed to my brothers to do some accounting work for them. I got home in time to get ready to take the kids to starlight ministries which just started up again. This is a kids grief program that is in Jenison and is run by some amazing people. If you need info on this, I have the link to the right and their web page is http://www.starlightmin.org/. I picked up my friend and her kids and we planned to drop them off and go to dinner with another friend who is also a widow from ALS to stay distracted. I came home and decided to watch a movie with the kids so we picked one on TV that was PG and to my dismay, the father had cancer and dies in the movie. Horrible choice there. Me and the kids were in tears thinking of Eric and our loss. I tucked the kids into bed after we talked and prayed and got to my bedroom at 12:05 am and just started to think about Eric. I realized that no matter what I did that day, it wouldn't have mattered. I made it through most of the day without thinking about it, but it wasn't the date that was the struggle. It was what the date represented. I was thinking about dates this morning and thought about how we celebrate Christmas on December 25th every year, but we don't know exactly when Christ was born. We just choose that day so we could celebrate the birth of our Savior. We also celebrate Easter on a certain Sunday in April, mothers day and fathers day too never falls on the same day, even birthdays are different if you are a leap year baby.  Our anniversary honored a day that I made a commitment to the man I loved to stay with him in sickness and in health, til death do us part.  I wondered what we would have done to celebrate it if he were still here, if he never had ALS and I just started missing him all over again.  I thought about the kids and how no one could ever have their best interests in their heart as much as he did.  I just wanted him to be back here with us and not have ALS.  I know that only God can fill the void me and the kids are feeling right now so that is my prayer again.  Doing better today, but very tired.