Easier Said than Done...

Ah the advice, the quotes, the quick and easy fixes.  Forgive and forget.   Let go and let God. Pray for those who hurt you. Love your enemies. Bless those who curse your. Que sera, sera. Get over it already. Count your blessings. Don’t worry, be happy. Hakuna matata. It is what it is.  

Easier said than done. Honestly, nearly impossible, when you have been betrayed. I thought I had experienced pain, that I knew how it felt. I have suffered loss, sickness, abandonment, injustice, disappointment, and sadness, but the pain of betrayal causes a wound so deep, and envelops you in its grasp so completely, it blots out everything good. Betrayal gives birth to deep-seated fear and has caused me to question everything in my life, even the good things. I feel lost, in a fog, and question my very existence. Nothing is safe, or solid, or good anymore.  I reach out to grab hold of something solid, to hold on to even one small slice of happiness, and it slips out of my hands. 

That is the pain of betrayal, and it hurts all the more when it is perpetrated by those you love, those you thought loved you.  A pain so deep, so gut-wrenching,  so pervasive, it is always there, and can never be pushed completely out of my mind.  The kind that sneaks up on you out of nowhere and takes your breath away.  I pray, try to keep busy, listen to music, read books and articles, talk and journal and blog, all to no avail.  The pain is tricky that way, because just when I think it is safe, just when I think the pain is less, that I’m beginning to heal, it smacks me in the face, kicks me in the solar plexus, reminding me it is still there.  Pain so real it is palpable, visible, with a life of its own. The pain lurks around every corner, behind every shadow, and wraps its sinewy arms around my heart and my chest, making it hard to breathe.  The intensity of the hurt makes me furrow my brow, and causes tears to well up without any warning.  

Betrayal does not make me stronger--it makes me weaker. It has not made me wiser--it has made me feel foolish. Everything is harder now--sleeping, enjoying, smiling, praying.  It is there when I wake up, when I go to bed at night, and when I try not to think about it all. Like a jealous lover, the pain of betrayal refuses to allow me to enjoy anything or anyone completely. And it is absolutely exhausting to try to act normal, to smile, to pretend I am doing okay.  

Today was a dark day, the pain and the hurt won. They jumped me when I was least expecting them, and then kept me prisoner all day long, and halfway into the night.  If I was a poet perhaps I could write some splendid verse to capture the pain and thus make it leave, or at least lessen for a time.  But I am not.  

So, for a while, I breathe, therefore I hurt.

Someone make it stop.

Waiting on the Lord

It's a lot easier to wait on the Lord and trust in His timing when things are going smoothly.  But let something go wrong, something so unexpected and undeserved, and my control freak nature screams to take the helm. Waiting is not my strong suit, and soaring with wings of eagles is impossible when I'm weighed down with worries.   

Wrongly accused. To be wrongly accused and not be able to refute lies and accusations has been one of the hardest tests of my faith in God's plan and His omnipotence. It's been two years since we vainly tried to intervene in my mother's caregiving, two years of emails and letters and communication with sisters who do not hear or want to hear, and a year since they undid all our efforts and lied to the court. We are caught up in their web of lies and deceitfulness, laboriously and painstakingly working through the maze of lawyers, counterclaims, discovery, and responses, and that web threatens to take up all our time, and monopolize our thoughts. Deadlines come and go, and still no answers, no solutions. We hired a lawyer, but we depend and lean on God. People ask about the status. Our children don't understand why we can't just get the court to dismiss the case. No one has heard anything from my mother or sisters, and we don't even know where they are. Yet I trust in God and His wisdom, secure in the knowledge that He knows where they are, He knows the conclusion, and He will work it all to His glory. Nonetheless while writing this, part of me wants to take control, and at times I must rein in my desire to get answers my own way. This morning was one of those days so I searched His Word for guidance on waiting.  

Lamentations 3 gives me peace, and hope that this trial is not hopeless, and I am not lost. Like the prophet in lamentations, I have vacillated between gloomy despair and the promise of His mercies. One minute I am desolate, depressed, tortured, and full of self pity, wondering why God allows injustice. But when I  turn back to Him, when I relinquish my feeble attempt to control my destiny, then (and only then), do I fully comprehend, "Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?"  (Lamentations 3:37)

"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him.   The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him."  Lamentations 3:24-25

Welcoming Grief and Sadness

I used to think Christians had all the answers, all the luck, great health, beautiful children, perpetual happiness.  I mean, regardless of what life handed them, there they were, ready to jump into a lion's den or hang upside down on a cross or shake hands with a leper.  Christians never got sad, did they? At least not for a long period of time, because they had eternity to be happy...and they had so many friends, and of course, they have God on their side, right? All that singing and clapping and hallelujah stuff....Christians are a bunch of happy campers. And they NEVER EVER stay sad for long. Right? So, as a Christian, if I am sad, I must be doing something wrong, right?

Wrong.  

Sadness and grief. These are powerful emotions, and normal reactions to human loss. God understands that--He created us, and our jumbled bag of emotions. Jesus, fully human, yet fully God, wept when Lazarus died. I know this, my head knows this, my soul knows this, yet I was struggling with welcoming my grief. But I am getting better at it. Because hiding my grief with false smiles, with busy-ness, with depression, behind facades of "I'm fine, how are you?s" was just too damn exhausting.  

Despite previous posts, I am overwhelmed with sadness, practically every day lately. While no one has died, I have lost most of my birth family--my mother, my sisters, my sisters 'families--even though they are still living.  I have no recourse to right the wrongs, no way to confront them, no court in which I may recover what I have lost. The damage--irreparable. The grief--immeasurable, and at times, nearly unbearable. Writing helps, reading helps, keeping busy helps, and yes, praying definitely helps lessen the sadness, but in truth, I do not want to escape the sadness.  I embrace it. I welcome it. I ache for it. Because in this deep, dark pool of sadness, my faith is tested, my soul is stripped completely bare. The proverbial rug has been ripped out from under my feet, and my world as i knew it has been flipped completely upside down. Yes, I have some constants of my life; I am not Job, after all. I have my husband, my home, my children and precious grandchildren, my dad and stepmother, my in-laws.  I am loved, I have friends, I have my health. But as anyone who suffers loss, whether through death, or divorce, or separation, will tell you, sadness is not about what you have that matters--it is what you have lost.

In the depth of that heart-wrenching loss, with everything topsy-turvy, my world upside down, nothing making any sense; when at a moment's notice I may just burst into tears while drinking a cup of coffee at the local bakery, or run out and sit in my car and sob uncontrollably for two hours in the freezing cold; when I feel like sleeping and never getting up, when I get irrationally angry at my husband...I welcome the grief, the sadness, the accompanying confusion, because it truly does make me see the tenets of my faith clearer. For now I MUST lean on everything I have believed up until now, the advice and counsel I have so freely given to others in their times of need.  When the bottom has fallen out of the boat, and you don't know how to swim anymore, the only option is to fall back on that life preserver that has been floating out there all along.  

I grab it. I hang on to it.  

Today it is the only thing keeping me afloat.