Sobbing on Sunday

Today was one of the hard Sundays. The ones when something - usually something fairly insignificant - stabs at a wound. The ones when I spend the entire day holding back the tears.

In Sunday School, the discussion focused on retrospection - looking back at this past year. Others around us shared things about their year, but my husband & I said . . . nothing. What could we say? The chasm of pain is still so deep that I think we're a bit afraid to say anything at all. How do you just say one, emotionally sanitized thing about a year that has ripped you apart, heart & soul? I feel a bit like the girl in the song. Afraid that if I cry that first tear -- or say the first sentence - the tears will not stop raining down and everyone around me will be alienated by the ugliness of my wounds. Swept away by the flow of my tears. So I sat and listened to others share from their year's experience and held all the pain of my own year inside.

Then the worship service started. And, I was doing fairly well keeping emotions under control. . . until we sang "What a Friend we Have in Jesus". The phrase

do thy friends despise, forsake thee?

take it to the Lord in prayer

in his arms he'll take and shield thee

thou wilt find a solace there

That was the final twist of the knife. My mind flooded with memories of the friends - people we have loved and served with and ministered to for years - who betrayed us. The ones who now, apparently, despise us. The tears began coming faster than I could blink them away and I stood through the next two songs brushing them from my face and trying desperately not to sob out loud.

Their rejection hurts so badly. The thing is, I really don't understand their rejection. It all seemed to happen so quickly. One day we were loved, appreciated, delighting in our opportunity to minister and serve these beloved people, and the next day we had become the enemy. The ones to attack. The ones who couldn't do anything right. The ones who were verbally kicked black and blue -- and then harshly judged as sinful because we were hurting. It's all so unbelievable to me that I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief over it.

I have mourned - I still mourn - the end of these relationships the way I would mourn the physical death of someone I love.

I have often sat - as I sat this evening in the privacy of our living room - with hands stretched out toward their invisible faces. Tears raining down & shoulders shaking with the weight of grief. Asking 'why? why couldn't you love us?'

On Sundays, it seems, there are many whys and few answers.

Dear God, may Monday dawn truly follow Sunday's darkness!

Peace

In a few weeks, my family and I will pass over the day that marks 2 years since our journey through forced termination & it's aftermath began. What an amazingly difficult 2 years it has been!
In those 2 years, I have cried more tears than I ever imagined I could.

I have hurt so deeply I could feel my soul caving in on itself.

I have moved through my days in the numb fog of disbelief and pain. There are entire stretches of time - days and weeks - that I can't remember clearly when I look back on them now.

I have spent days curled into an emotional foetal position, straining to hear the faint murmur of my Father's heart . . . "I know the plans I have for you . . . plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."

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And, ever so slowly, I have begun to heal.

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Oh, the pain is still there. I still have days of deep, profound sadness at all we have lost - home, a church body we considered family, confidence, innocence. Yet, more and more frequently, I also have peace.

I've had a hard time saying I'm at peace with all that has happened. It seems like saying that will somehow mean I'm saying that everything that has happened was not so bad. And I don't ever want to say that! It was bad - in fact, it was awful! But the peace is there. Silently stealing in, blanketing my wounded, bleeding heart with a healing quiet and calm. I have a hard time describing it, but it's there.

Recently I read this post on the blog of a woman I've never met. Someone whose own journey of deep pain has been down the path of infertility. She described the peace that she now feels and I thought 'yes! that's what it's like'. Here are her words:

I reflected back over our journey and I realized the kind of peace I meant. It’s not the pansy, pie-in-the-sky, life-is-perfect peace. No, this is the kind of peace that comes after war. It’s the hard-won, show-you-my-scars, didn’t-think-I’d-live-to-tell-about-it, peace. It’s not gentle—it’s wild, fierce, and I’m not giving it up, not ever, because I paid too high a price to get it.

When I realized that, I cried.There’s something beautiful about naming and knowing the place where you are in life. I could feel myself sigh inside and say, “Yes, that’s it.” This peace is mine and I can stay there as long as I’d like. I can eat the food, put my feet on the furniture, and invite my friends over.

It was once the land I fought for and pursued. Now it's the place where my heart lives.
It's good to be home.

If you're on your own journey of deep pain, be encouraged!

There is peace and healing to be found!

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18