When your car breaks down, you call a mechanic. When the drain is clogged, you call a plumber. When you’re sick with a fever, you call a doctor. But who do you call when your heart has been ripped out of your chest and you’re left standing there…holding it in your hands? And you’re still breathing? When it happened to me, believe it or not, the first person I called was Hubby #2. He was a doctor. He was my friend. He’d know what to do.

There was a whole line of people who stepped up and surrounded me with the sweetest loving support. They held me. They cried with me. They prayed for me. They did everything they could for me and yet…no one could “fix” me. As much as I wanted that, it just wasn’t possible. There was only one person who could and I kept close company with Him. I pleaded every day for Jesus to come and sit with me and hold me close.

Every day, I cried to God to take this off of me. He did not. I hated Him for taking my husband away. I bargained. I screamed. I threatened. But no matter what I did, He would not lift my grief till it ran its course on HIS time, not mine. It didn’t seem fair. It felt like I’d been robbed. And I was. Any of us who lose a part of ourselves through death understands exactly what I’m talking about.

There are several of you reading who are walking through this dreadful journey, even as we speak. I know your heart is breaking. I know there is a thin line between fear and anger. I know you feel like a part of you died with your person…as real as if your arm had been amputated. I see you. I know you. I stood where you are standing. Maybe not in the exact same spot, but so similar as to make not a speck of difference.

As I took my turn painting the hallway yesterday, my heart really wasn’t in it. Painting isn’t my most fun activity and my shoulder hurt and I was in the middle of something I’d much rather work on. I could have stood there grumbling, making myself even more miserable. Or, I could let my mind wander the paths it took me and I slowed my breathing and my brush strokes. I let the word association of analogies take over inside my head and let my arm go with the flow.

It wasn’t long till the analogy came to me. There will always be people along your life journey that will want you to paint a clean coat of paint over your messy self so they don’t have to be uncomfortable being around you. Blunt, but true. I will hazard to say a rather large number of them have no idea what they’re doing is hurting you. Another percentage will have an understanding that what they’re asking of you isn’t terribly helpful, but they just don’t know what else to do. It has been my experience that very few of them are intentionally mean, but it’s not unheard of.

There will be times in your grief where you need to gather up every bit of strength and slog through something you never dreamed you could do. There will be times when you cannot find the strength to get out of bed let alone anything truly functional. But please, mark my words, there will be moments of light in the darkness. When you can, string those moments together and wrap them around you like a strand of dim market lights that illuminate a few feet in every direction.

Eventually, the color returns. You’ll notice music again. The seasons will change and so will you. Just be careful with those coats of paint. They’re easy to hide behind, but without facing the slings and arrows that are thrown at you, you will miss the gems God throws down in the flames of your life. Pick them up. Tuck them in your pockets. You may not understand what they are all about, but eventually, the Holy Spirit will reveal their meaning to you. Insights will come if you ask for them. 

I know not all of you are believers, but I speak to everyone. Place your feet on the Earth and your face to the sky and ask the wind to whisper comfort to your poor broken heart. Ask for healing and wisdom and insight. Hand everything over at the end of the day. I know my God puts them in a special basket for safe keeping and hands them back to me in the morning. 

And, you know what?

That basket is always just a bit lighter the next day…sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. But always lighter.

?

“If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath.”

Psalms 34:18 MSG