i read in a book of a woman who shattered a glass jug after the death of her daughter and glued the jug back together again. God used that as a healing tool, to see how shattered her life is and how God puts it back together. these few months have felt like i needed to shatter something and God could have made a huge lesson out of that act, but instead He allowed the jug in my heart to keep filling and filling, with what i'm not sure, but i definitely could feel it, until it exploded into a million pieces. tonight after the explosion, i spent an hour crying... i have been stuffing my heart with grief, not wanting to deal with it, ignoring the fact that it was there, pushing away the signs that told me i needed to stop... but i just kept going. it's been over four years get over it E... right??? so wrong.
and tears well up again as i type this... last weekend i had a class where we talked about grief and crisis, there was no running from it any more, there it was right in my face... but i couldn't deal with it in class... so what do i do... stuff it again. i should know better right... because who suffers the most besides me... A. so today was the last straw... for both A and myself. i cried as i prayed for her bedtime. after she was in bed a little she called me and she was in tears. then settling her in bed, i went to take a shower and cried.... and cried... and cried, which then reminded me of the times i cried in the shower after P died and cried some more. thought i was done and started to work on a paper after the shower to find myself feeling the tension rise in my body.... this time i listened... stopped everything and went to the green couch to talk to God. there i talked to him and explained to him how again this is just not what i expected. how i really miss P. then i started talking to P... i wish he was here to listen to all that i want to say. an hour of this... then i started reading some letters i wrote to P after his death... cried some more.... and still tears run down my cheek.
from far away a jug glued together may look like there is nothing wrong with it, rather it could look perfect and so beautiful, but the closer you go you notice the glue and the crevices where the pieces don't quite fit exactly together... then you realize the imperfection of the jug that at one point what looked perfect is not so. that's me. i know many people look at me and think that i'm fine, perfect and beautiful, but the closer you look, you'll see the sorrow in the crevices and need of people to recognize it and help keep the jug from exploding again. the Lord has done some amazing things in my life to turn sorrow into joy, but it's a continual coming back this thing called grief and it's quite disturbing of the every day life. i cannot ever again let it stuff this long... do not like the exploding effects. i need to be more mindful and intentional about taking care of the feelings that are underlying my everyday reactions during the day... the only way to do that is to stay grounded in the word and allow the holy spirit to continue to bring the things hiding in the dark to light that it may not plant bad seeds in my heart, but rather be burned to the core with truth.
Lord... i'm in a million pieces exploded all over... i ask for a new beautiful masterpiece... incorporating the old and bringing in new, but still showing the imperfections of me, at the same time demonstrating the perfection of your work in me.
E, you need to ... breath... abide... live... glorify... delight... trust... magnify... love...
