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!
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