Broken

I’m not sure why I think I am the exception. I thought I had felt the sting before. It seems to be an undulating staircase that ever so slowly and subtly pulls me down further and further. When I think the worst has hit there is just more waiting. Another ruling today. Why can’t I tell my story. I don’t know the players. I don’t understand the game. I am yet again crushed by a flawed system that doesn’t allow for any naive moves from an untrained participant. I thought I had found some reprieve but someone more cunning than me knew how to outplay it. And when I stood up for my rights. When I asked to be recognized as a mother, I was told to sit down and be quiet, I would just make them mad…and then the punishment came, More money I don’t have. I didn’t do the right things. I should have had help. I should have played by their rules but I thought it wasn’t necessary. They proved to me it is. Drag you down…and I just keep thinking, this must be it. This is the time I break. This is the time the pieces shatter and don’t get put back again. My hands are numb as I type this. I moved from my spot on the floor just long enough to take the kids to storytime and get them from school. I am so scared to do anything else. The tears come and go. I’m grateful today that my kids have been more clingy than usual. I desperately needed them close. But now they are gone as Wednesdays always come. And I just keep thinking, broken…I tried even harder the last few months to invite Christ into ALL of my relationships. And I knew the most important to work on was with my x. He has caused so much disruption to so many innocent people. My children were spending 4 hours in the car each week because we had to meet at the police station. They were late to school and church and every day was a fight. If the police weren’t at the parking lot he was mean and contentious. I had asked for BM’s shoes back, he had kept 2 of her 3 pairs, and he wouldn’t let them bring them home. He ignored me until I said please and then berated me so loudly about not having manners that a lady in the parking lot stopped and walked over. Last year I didn’t make him bring the girls home for Easter, even though I was entitled to the holiday because they had a trip planned. This year we had to cancel our spring break trip because the same courtesy isn’t extended. It was his birthday on Sunday. We each get to celebrate our birthdays with the kids. It would be the fourth Sunday the girls missed in a row. I was struggling with that. I offered an earlier pick-up time from the house so that I could fulfill my calling and because the most important part of the Sabbath is worshiping my Lord and I didn’t want to be late to church. He refused and told me pick up was at the police station. I had decided early that morning that I was going to have a good Sunday. I love Sundays. They are a day of beauty to me. I think happy things and get so excited to go to church. And it feels broken when the girls aren’t there. But I still wanted to find the beauty in the day. I was going to act as if I was meeting the Savior and giving him the 3 little spirits I wanted so badly to keep with me. Treat him like the Savior would had become my mantra. So that meant they would be happy. We had a yummy breakfast, I made sure their hair was combed. Their faces were clean. Their teeth brushed and beds made. This is not the condition they are in when it is Monday morning and they are coming home for school. And they had the biggest smiles I could get as we drove and sang Saturday’s Warrior in the car. And I got a sarcastic text as I drove away about how I was so easy to work with…don’t let it break you…I know that I can’t control anyone else’s actions. And I know that it is so much better for me when I choose an attitude of joy over one of revenge. I find my strength in the words of the scriptures. I find a life line in those around me who offer advice, and friendship and support and love. I see God’s hand in every moment of every day. And maybe that was where I was still lacking. Maybe I was hiding behind strength. Maybe I was only acknowledging the moments where I felt on top of everything. Those moments are good too. We need to have times when we become bigger than we think we can be. We need times when we see the size of the fight God puts in our hearts. We have to stand for what we know, we have to fly our title of liberty and push back against the forces that threaten us. But maybe it isn’t always us against them. Maybe the good versus evil is just another tool of the adversary to distract us from the refining of ourselves that God is trying to create. How can I expect him to fortify me when I am pointing and shouting, "but that is bad, that is wrong! that over there is at fault." Take away the bad guy, take away the darkness. I know you can do it. I know you are powerful. I know that you have blessed me with everything I have. And I know I don’t deserve it. I am playing nice and it’s hard and now you protect me.

But today He says, I will let you break.

Because it is only then that you will let me heal you my child.

I knew where my testimony stood. I knew where my salvation came from. I knew my source of peace. But I wasn’t willing to promise Him that I needed it. As a parent I know that there is no other pain like watching your child suffer. I listened to BK tell me that no one would play with her at recess and cried and cried until all my tears ran out, I don't want them to hurt. I hate Easter. I hate it because I hate hearing about the suffering Jesus had to endure. And I hate when I hear about God, retreating to his darkest corner of his universe because he couldn’t bear to see his Son go through pain he should never had to have suffered, and cry out in agony when he had to leave him to do it alone. I was reminded today by someone that He already knows my pain. He has gone through it. But He doesn’t leave me alone. He comes to my desperate cries, finds my broken soul, picks up all the pieces because he created them and says again, “Now my child. Now, I can heal you.” 

I sit looking at 37 black wood tiles on the wall of my living room. They were cut out by hand, sanded one by one and each bear a letter that altogether spell out the names of each member of our family. It was an extensive amount of work put in by a man who has no idea how much his efforts to bond our family run deep. The kids were thrilled to see it hung on the wall and talked about how much we each needed one another, if any piece were missing it would mess up the others and they talked about the day we got married and how our lives are now. They even made their own scrabble family version with our game this morning. I had stared at that wall early one morning, a day when I was feeling fearful about the things to come, and I knew that what mattered was right there. It is firm and it everlasting. No force of evil in any form can take that from me if I fight for it. That is when you need to be loud. That is when you need to protect your flock. For that is where my heart is.

And for whatever reason God sees fit that now I needed to be quiet. He is refining me to be ready for what He needs me to be. Perhaps one day the fight will be bigger than I could have handled, or maybe sometime I will finally be able to help someone else who is falling behind. I want to be ready for any of it. But today I will wait for Him. I will know that I need His healing. I will cry and I will beg and I will hurt and I will let Him start to heal. Scar tissue creates the strongest bond our skin can form. It comes from trauma, it is the only way. But I will let Him in now. I cannot do it without his healing power. He will “turn my mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow…I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” I have to make my will align with his. I have to allow him the room to take me and make me what he knows I need to be. So I will let him dry the endless tears, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes…neither shall there be any more pain.” Faith and hope will replace heartache. We “should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.” That joy will come. That healing is His and mine will come. I won’t remain broken.