There have been lots of live butterflies today.
Lately, I’ve been choked by guilt. Guilt is difficult to overcome and
forgiveness impossible. Forgiveness for
all the lists of things I wish I could change and all the “ifs” that line up one on top of the other. I don’t want to be a whiner. There have been good days, even great
days. A 47th surprise party
given by the man who still makes my palms sweat and who still makes my heart
pound and who is really the only other person who knows exactly what I am going
through – there have been good days. And
there are good things, people, friends, family.
It’s only that those good days take so much out of us that we recover as
if we’ve been hit with all of this all over again. Never knowing what will wipe us out is
tricky.
Which brings me to this whole idea of isolation. First of all, Peter MD asks me about it every
time I check in, and I always tell the truth.
Raeann and the tribe are too pushy to let me isolate completely, but
that’s pretty much all I want to do. The
need to hide and avoid and be invisible comes from the fact that each time I
meet someone I haven’t seen since Zach’s death, the whole experience wells up
inside me, and I am slammed with the grief, the suffocating panic, the stabbing
pain. It is just easier to be alone with
those few people who have seen the worst of us at our worst. Not only that, but I think the whole “be
still and know I am God” command kind of demands an isolation of sorts. Being still and alone or simply quiet with
the safe people isn’t such a bad thing – no matter what Peter MD says about
it. He hasn’t been in our shoes, and I hope he never is.
On Sunday, it was really bad. Flashback after flashback bombarded my mind
and the tears came again and again. That
night is something we will all carry for the rest of our lives only to drop
away and disappear when we too, like Zach, are face to face with our Redeemer. It’s horrific. Memories no one should be forced to
carry. And yet, God allowed that.
Sunday was bad. I
felt hopeless and helpless and crushed again, and Monday was the same. I’ve never experienced grief like this –
where the “gone” person was with me every day and night for 13 years. He’s missed by everyone, but they didn’t have
him day in and day out so the hole in them is different than the one in
us. There’s just an empty space all the
time, a hole, a very deep one. Lately,
I’ve been hit with the deaths of several other people, and I wonder about and
pray for the ones who’ve lost the everyday of the person who’s gone. Their grief is a place that most of us don’t
know yet. Most of us haven’t lost a
child or a spouse. That every single day
hole is deep.
And then there’s God and what He’s doing in the midst of all
this. Of course there are the never ending
butterflies – every single day- every single one. As for church, we’ve been doing “home”
church, listening to Bible lessons crowded around our kitchen table. And, I read my Bible almost every day to stay
on track with my “through the Bible chronologically” in a year plan. So part of my reading Sunday morning was
Psalm 34. Reading through it, I stopped. Part of that Psalm has been quoted to me many
times since Zach died, but I had never looked it up or knew exactly what the
context was:
17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears
them; he delivers them from all their troubles.
18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
I read that in my Bible Sunday morning. Later, as we listened to our Sunday morning
lesson, again, there was Psalm 34, specifically those same verses. The Lord is close to me with my broken heart
and crushed spirit. Okay so a nice
coincidence. That Psalm 34.
Monday night I soaked in my new tub. So down and depressed and just sad. Trying to pick myself up and feed my mind
with something good, I thumbed to my place in the Marsha gift of Confessions of a Grieving Christian. Have you guessed yet that again that message –
that Psalm 34 message about God being close to me and my broken heart and
crushed spirit was right there in the chapter of that book. Right there again! Three times in two days. I guess I should pay attention when God
speaks.
What I am learning in
all this grief and sadness and pain is that it is alright to feel it. How many times do we read about the tearing
of clothes, the smearing of ashes, the gnashing of teeth over tragedy in the
scriptures? Lots in the Old Testament
for sure. I don’t have to feel good, or
better, or even okay. I just need to
know that God is there to save me – each day, every day, especially in
this. It’s the isolation that is
teaching me who He is. Peter MD may not
like that isolation address, but isolation is where I am until God moves
me. And He will have to move me. I can’t do it. I can’t forgive myself. But He can teach me forgiveness. I can’t stop asking why. But He can change the question. I can’t stop the hole. He can fill it.
So, no matter how many times those people out there tell me
what they think is best for me, only He knows.
And I am very comfortable although miserable with my broken heart
because He is close to me. He
knows. And He will save me.
I can’t do it.
He is close to the
brokenhearted. He will save the ones who are crushed in spirit. And He will keep reminding me with those
butterflies that Zach is exactly right where God wants him to be, and that over
and over reminder will slowly knit together this broken heart and heal this
crushed spirit. He can do it.
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