A Wounded Heart

Early in my journey of healing, I tried to study about the stages of grief in an effort to understand what I was feeling. But, honestly, my emotions were all over the place. I wasn’t sure where I was at any given moment or on any given day. Recently, having come full circle in my personal journey with the death of my former husband, not to mention other major challenges that were on the horizon, I hoped somehow that I would experience a little bit of respite from many of the thunderstorms of life. I hoped that I might find some tranquility, if for a small moment, instead of the constant tumultuous storms of adversity. 

During the past several weeks, as I prepared to teach a lesson on Job during Sunday School, a flood of memories and emotions filled my soul. I had prepared this very same lesson twenty years ago, at the very time when my family life completely fell apart. At that time, I was suddenly thrust into being a single parent, alone, pregnant, mother to three beautiful children, soon to be four.

Fast forward to the present, I studied that same lesson on Job over the past many weeks, and I studied the same blessed scriptures, the same inspiring quotes, and the same heavenly principles from the life of Job that gave me so much comfort twenty years ago. Then, two weeks ago, just one day before I was to give this same lesson on Job, my life took an unexpected turn, and I was thrust down a severe and difficult path, one I was not expecting. 

Now, here I am, and I face yet another traumatic loss in my life. I find myself standing again at the threshold of grief and mourning, of emotions and pain that at times seem inconsolable. As I stand facing another harrowing loss, I actually wonder if I have the strength to endure? How do I face such intense emotions once again? How do I feel the grief that is coming to the surface and still make it through the day? How do I keep moving forward when I am feeling such a deep and profound loss?

Though this loss is not of death or divorce, it is nonetheless, for me, a personal loss of gigantic proportions. Thank goodness for dear friends close to me who truly understand the high cost of what I am feeling. Right now, I am hanging on to tender words of love and support, of beautiful gestures of kindness and compassion, and of true goodness and gentleness.

I look around and weep for times gone by. I weep for wonderful memories now fading in the distance. And I face the depth of my own indescribable pain. As I look heavenward for healing, I fall to my knees and plead with God for mercy and compassion. And as I pray, I still search for that sacred place, and seek for His comfort and rest.