There are times when the pain is so real it feels like a nightmare.
Thinking the worst was over, once I got to the appointment, I was expecting to go and go on with my day. The last 12 hours (at that point, earlier this afternoon) had already been a living hell, how much worse could it get from here.
A question I always find myself wishing I'd never asked.
I remember staring at the screen in disbelief, trying to put together what they were saying and what I was seeing, but everything within me was reeling. This cannot be happening.
All of a sudden it felt like their words knocked the wind out of me. I was stunned. Speechless. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to do.
I guess the expression on my face told it all. I know... it's a lot, she said.
Yeah. Yeah.
I replied as I struggled to find words while I tried to buy time looking around fumbling for my purse, still shocked and reeling from the myriad of questions and possibilities now colliding with the surface of my reality; it felt as if someone had just swung a bat and busted open a hornet's nest, no matter how hard I tried to escape it, nothing could undo the swarm that had been unleashed.
I slipped into a part of myself I never knew existed*, as one of my favorite authors says. I was just going through the motions by that point, trying to wrap my mind around it all.
Like a ball rolling down a hill, a ball that no matter how hard we try to chase it, no matter how fast we run, how close we may get to it at times, how many different people also are trying to catch it from a ton of different perspectives, a ball that I could feel slipping again from my fingertips, a ball that I never held, but felt so close to finally snatching it, only to find again it has only picked up more speed.
A pain that rips open fresh again the wound that we are not in control. And that this is a beast that refuses to be tamed.
There are times the pain just does not make sense. This pain that knows no end.
A place I have been so many times before and a place that brought me back to the only place that is safe in times like this, the only One whose voice I want to here. The only thing that matters and my only Solace, Comfort in the times where there really are no words that could be said, nothing that could take or even touch the depth of the pain.
A place I have found I have learned to reside.
A place where it is He and I alone, where there, in the midst of my reeling, the midst of my shock, the midst of despair my soul can find again peace. Hope. Solace in Him and His Word. The One who alone holds the words of life. The One who alone fully knows and fully sees. And who has not forgotten me.
The sacredness of a God who is present in my pain, even in the moments when I feel abandoned.
The sacredness of a God who is deeply grieved and weeps with me and over me and for me, even in the moments when everything within me is questioning His love.
The sacredness of a God who enters and pushes me past the barricades of the pain I fear will consume me. The questions I'd rather not voice, the emotion I'd rather forget. The sacredness and tender mercy of a God who is there when it hurts. Even when we don't understand it. A Presence I could not deny in those moments where it felt my soul was continuing to be raked over the coals; a Presence with me, there in the fire no matter how bad it hurts, reminding me I am never, ever alone.
"You are the light... that's leading me.
To the place... where I find peace, again.
You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You still my heart, and you take my breath away.
You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the life, to my soul.
You are my purpose, you're everything."
- Lifehouse
*Angie Smith, I Will Carry You
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