write to breathe

i've been all choked up of heart,

and who really wants to share their heart

exposing it naked when you can't make sense of yourself.

so i've avoided this place like a violent stomach virus,

for fear of spewing my innards on the floor before you,

the stench and mess infecting you too.

so i've hurled and i heaved in the only healthy way i know,

prayer and pleading, confession and bleeding.

my God, i know that He can handle the mess of hurt i lay down.

and a few precious sisters of the soul, have shared to lighten the load.

but tonight, the hot tears falling,

i feel i must write to breathe.

four years of life on our own,

and the pain of missing the moments,

it pierces and it stings every time.

we sit quietly tonight. alone, a world apart.

and our family, they gather together, and they connect and they eat,

celebrating life as every loving family should.

they linger over laughter and soak in the children

taking in together the moments that make up a lifetime.

i've cried these tears four years of quiet evenings,

watching from afar the milestones and the mundane,

(mundane only to those who have known the beauty of togetherness so long they are numb to the gift)

technology can be a blessing and a curse.

who can know the pain of exile? that's how my husband explains it.

and i scold myself a thousand times, each person's cross to carry worth the weight.

who can know the pain of a husband passing?

or a child missing? or hunger piercing? or health depleting?

wars wage and pain suffocates; who am I to be melancholy?

selfish me with my cupboards full and my body strong

my children sleeping safe, my husband loving faithfully and true.

but tonight, the hot tears falling,

i feel i must write to breathe.

i walked a road of death this week,

never before knowing the ways of self-loathing.

selfish, wretched mess of a woman. hopeless.

that's what the enemy whispered.

and for the first time, i agreed,

believing it so deeply, I wanted to tatoo it to my skin.

but jesus sent my husband to pray words of life over me,

and its a good thing, because Eden falling is a scary place to live.

satan, he deceives, and even now, that fruit entices.

"Can I really trust your heart toward me is Good?"

my God pursing and my Adam gently loving,

i dared to breathe in of hope.

But hope is a scary thing;

deferred it makes the heart sick, that's what proverbs says.

and waiting seems to be all I've ever known.

so I stand staring into the black night,

not knowing when or how the light will appear.

but I know the one who led me here is Good.

and though the enemy surrounds, insisting that He has abandoned,

left me for dead, never returning,

i clench my eyes and scream into the piercing darkness,

"I HAVE A FATHER! He promised to never leave me! He promised to work all things together for the good of those that love him. And I do love him, frail as I am. He has a son who is called Faithful and True. He promised to be with me always, until the very end of the age. If he saw fit to lead me into this dark, he will come for me, and he will lead me through it!"

with eyes still clenched, and in broken whisper I finish,

"And I...I. trust. Him."

when your dreams have been stripped away

and your hope lies limp and dead,

it is terrifying to trust the one who is the architect of the plan

that has brought so much pain.

i imagine Jesus felt this way when he hung from the cross that should be mine:

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt 27:46)

but when we find ourselves in this place,

let us resound with Hosea:

“Come, let us return to the LORD. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds." (6:1).

i trust that if he injures, if he strips, if he isolates, if he burns,

it is for my refining, my undivided heart, my growth, my good.

so tonight, in pain I don't understand, hot tears falling,

i feel I must write to breathe:

"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21)

ejk