Shattered

(Originally Written: 2015)

There was that day the earth stood still.

I was told something that shattered me to the core.

Something I couldn’t wrap my head around.  Something that defied all my reason and all my reality.  Something that was a narrative for someone else’s life, not mine.  Not mine.

My legs were cut out from under me, my breath was knocked out of me, my brain was fried, the rock under my feet was quicksand.  I was drowning before I knew even what had happened, or even fully processed what I had heard.

This is one of those things no one could know, and no one does, and no one will . . . except a husband, a counselor, a deeply trusted friend

Sometimes the most painful things that cut the deepest and cause us to mourn the hardest are the things we just can’t share.

This was my fault.  It happened on my watch, under my nose. 

It was a failure so profound I couldn’t live with it.  The shame and condemnation was screaming so loud I couldn’t make it stop.

It was my job to make sure this never, ever happened.  I was to provide safety, protection.  I was responsible for missing it.  How did I miss it? How could I have missed it?  I have never been so stupid.  Never so gullible.  Never so profoundly foolish . . . or maybe I was.  Maybe that’s all I was.  Stupid.  Foolish.

This could not be.  This could not be.

There had been trials before this.  There would be trials after this.

But nothing would come close to this unexpected, inexplicable, completely impossible news that created in me a chasm of fear and helplessness I don’t know how to describe.

Have you been there?

In an instant, the rug is pulled out from under you.

The normal of life is no longer normal.  The things you depended on for stability and security are no longer existent, much less stable or secure.

Even the things that comforted you before cannot provide salve for this wound, or a glimmer of hope, or a way out of the hole you find yourself in.

If you had a way to make what happened emotionally to you physical, you would be bleeding from head to toe, profusely, uncontrollably, for all to see.

But no one sees while you bleed internally, no longer the same, mourning a secret, devastated by news that stays hidden to protect those that need you the most.

Everything changed in a moment.  The only thing I knew to do was breathe.  I thought maybe it’s a bad dream that will surely go away.  I didn’t know what I would do if I woke up tomorrow and it was still true

One thing felt for sure.  Life was over.  Joy was a thing of the past.  Happiness no longer existed.   

I may have gotten out of bed.  I may have gotten dressed, breathed in and out, walked around. But I felt like a corpse, a hollowed out shell, bearing a pain that kept me from even knowing how to pray.

In the light of this, there was no seeing goodness.  Just the raw harsh reality of a cold, cruel world that was dark and evil and had won, conquered, and destroyed whatever sunshine I remembered before this day.

I couldn’t think.  I couldn’t hold it together.  I couldn’t.  But I had to.  Because I loved someone much deeper than I loved my need to be in a fetal position forever.

If there was healing, if there was hope, I would seek it and I would find it . . . for the sake of the one that needed it even more than I did.

“God?  Where were you?

If You had been watching, this wouldn’t have happened.

All You had to do was tell me . . . I would have listened.  All You had to do was make me see and I could have stopped it.”

All the anger I felt, all the helplessness and fear and devastation  . . . I poured it out to God in tears, in screams and cries, in silent weary broken pleas.

You see, I didn’t understand.  I didn’t have answers.  But I had learned the hard way not to let go of the fact that God loved me, and His promises were true. Even though it didn’t make any sense to me, I knew that if I could trust, if I could hold onto Him, maybe just maybe He would lift me up out of this pit. 

But He did something different.

He got in the pit with me.

Before I was ready to begin to look up, He wrapped His arms around me right where I was.

He wept with me.  He cried with me.  He knew my pain, intimately, completely.  And He took it on Himself, easing my burden, helping me go on.

Little by little, His Word began to speak to me again.  And I began to cling to the stories of so many others who had been restored, healed, and lifted out of a place such as this.

He told me that it wasn’t my fault.  That I missed something, but not intentionally.  That He would show me how to be strong for the one I loved.

And I watched that someone heal.  By the grace of a kind and loving God, healing began to grow.

Like a miracle.  Like watching a flower unfold, a small spark coming to life, a sunrise on a cloudy day.

Like streams in the desert, or a small bud pushing out between hard rocks . . . what I thought was destroyed was coming back to life again.

And God breathed on me too. Because I didn’t run away.  I stayed.  I begged for His help.  I knew He was the Only One, and He didn’t abandon or disappoint.

He was, and always had been, my Rock and my Redeemer.  I had nowhere else to go.

I could have shut down in anger and disbelief.  I almost did.

I could have decided I had had enough – He had His chance, and this was too much.

But then, where would my loved ones be? 

If I had exited, if I had curled in around my pain and refused to call upon the name of the Lord, where would that leave the wounded one who needed me?

Call His Name.

Even if all you can start with is “Jesus, help me.”  It is a place to start.

If one tiny part of your heart can start to believe He loves you in the face of pain, tragedy, unexpected hurt . . . He will answer.  Even if you believe it is your fault. 

Because He didn’t hurt you.  But He will hurt with you.  And He will show you a path to comfort and healing and hope.  One step at a time.  Even if no one else knows.  Even if no one else cares. 

“Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”  Jeremiah 33:3

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  Psalm 147:3

“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.”  Isaiah 41:10

He means it.  He really does.

“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13