Rest. Typically not a word in my vocabulary.
I was coming up to the weeks before my vacation, barely hanging on by a thread. I didn’t even notice how tired I was. My body moved slowly, numbly in its predictable, mechanical motions of the day. Though I accomplished all of my responsibilities, it grew challenging to be present, much less to focus. I could hardly tell how cloudy my mind had become. How disconnected I felt. Unsteady.
Few people walk down the aisle at their wedding thinking about divorce. But it happens. The reality is that 5 in 10 marriages will end in divorce, and 3.8 in 10 evangelical Christian marriages will not survive, according to statistics.
Nights can be the worst. That’s when they steal in and threaten to pull me under. Panic attacks.
It was the perfect day for a wedding. Their eyes were filled with love and longing, their dreams diffused by the tint of their rose-colored glasses.
Rachel’s face was weary, her distracted glance seemed lost somewhere in the distance. She spoke of her life in fragments and whispers. Her story was both tragic and impossible. My heart wept for the child who endured such abuse, such profound neglect and who woke up years later with a lifetime of losses and a heart full of sorrow. Her emotions swelled just beneath the surface, though she worked fiercely to contain them.
It was tearing them apart.
The affair was so long ago, surely we should be over it by now, they wondered?
It was the tipping point. The beginning of the fall. No, it wasn’t a crash, a sudden impact dive that you didn’t see coming. I saw this coming. I could feel it making its way toward me and yet, I was entirely helpless to stop it.
Who doesn’t LOVE anniversaries? I can’t believe it has been a YEAR since my book, “Peace For A Lifetime” launched! What a sweet year it has been to see how God turned my healing journey into a passion to equip others to find the healing and abundance God has designed for each of us.
I’ve been stressed lately. Really stressed. The air around me feels tense, the ground uneven, the future highly uncertain. Watching the news can send my blood pressure skyrocketing. I find myself seeking respite in Little House On The Prairie reruns just to take my mind off of everything that is swirling around me.
We’ve all experienced tragedies beyond our control that seemingly come from nowhere. They devastate us, they rock us to the core, they leave us feeling too overwhelmed and disoriented to muster the courage to get up and face this big, chaotic world for another day. Sometimes it seems it would be easier just to stay in bed and pull the covers up high so we can pretend that nothing at all has happened. Perhaps this was just a bad dream after all.
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