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Reality slaps me in the face on occasion. OK, daily. The reality of my situation is that a genetic disease took up residency in my boys from the time they grew in my womb. It grew, unnoticed at first, but then became a monster that overtook my 6-year-old son. He fought like a warrior with joy to the end and he is with Jesus now. My 3-year-old faces this same disease, a disease just two years ago we didn’t even know existed. I look around at the pictures of my “normal” boys playing together and gawk at how out of control this life suddenly spun. There was change around every corner and I had no say one way or the other about it.
The breakdowns happen often. I fall to my knees with sobs in the kitchen, the shower, even in my dreams. Every single night I prayed for healing over my oldest son. I asked God to make it all better. To make it right. And yet I felt then, and continue to feel now, the constant tug to let go … to continue to let go.
It feels like too much to stay in this place with my heavy heart. Too much undefined. Too many what ifs. Too much heartbreak. Death. Rising in me like a volcano is this anxiety – a need to get everything in place exactly how it needs to be. To do everything perfectly so I don’t mess this mom job up or miss the few moments I am allowed to have with my children. And I hit the pillow exhausted. And then it all haunts me in my dreams.
Where do I run? I want to escape to where there is a quiet that fills my soul and gives me new breath and strength reaffirmed. Is there such a place without packing up my gear and backpacking away to the nearest mountain peak? How do I control the crazy happening in my life?
And I hear God whisper to my heart:
Run, Daughter, run … full on to me. Don’t run to Facebook. Don’t run to speculation. Don’t run to pointless conversation. Don’t run to coffee. Don’t run to the approval of others. Don’t run to shopping. Don’t run to your perfect standards of what a mom should be. Don’t run to your negative self-talk. Don’t run to anxious what ifs.
But, by all means, Daughter, run …
To Me.
And I run. Because if I don’t, I will get stuck. And once I’m stuck, it’s hard to move. I run to him with all my anger, anxiety, fear. I run to him with all my gratitude, joy and promise that I will be enough for this job of grief-filled motherhood. I just run. What pulls me to him is not just my brokenness, but his faithful promise to redeem!
I have no idea what the rest of my journey will look like. I know that I’m living with an emotional limp and my heart screams at me to stop, It’s too hard. But there is a life-giving pulse of truth and love building, with peace and forgiveness abounding in me. My soul fills back up, my mind looks forward and I keep going. One moment at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time.
This heavy life. A life full of hurt, sickness, pain and unknowns. I know what I want to do: panic, worry, hate, protect, shut out. That way is death and I’ve had enough of that. The truth is that right here is where I need to be: in my dirty and in my hard; in the very place where I feel my soul being sucked out. Perhaps in these soul-sucking places is where I’ll get the most soul-filling. I am learning that each time I let go and run toward him, he fills my soul anew again.
I am a coach’s wife, a grieving mommy, and a pursuer of the hard and vulnerable to find truth, joy and love! I blog our story at youcantstealmyjoy.com.