Dancing on Broken Glass

Courtesy D. Horocks

I wish I knew when walking on eggshells became dancing on broken glass. Looking back now, I can't tell you when one ended and the other began. I am sure of one thing. I am so weary I almost have to think, “Beat, heart, beat. Breathe, lungs, breathe,” to make sure both keep happening.

When my heart does beat, the thud resonates like the peal of a blacksmith's hammer on anvil. Is this what a broken heart feels like? I saw it on the news: broken hearts literally kill some women. I can understand why.

This thing that is happening to me, to us, is like some great flu taking me to the brink of emotional death. In the process, the physical exhaustion leaves me feeling like the victim of some fearful tropical disease. Sleep, even deep sleep, does not bring energetic enthusiasm with the dawn of day. I just keep doing the next thing and the next thinking I will eventually find that I've awakened out of a nightmare.

By permission and in loving memory of Christina Jones Hooker

When I wake up, I find that I am again in the midst of some tortuous replay of the day before. My own personal and inescapable version of the movie Groundhog's Day. In the process, life is dragging two sons along with me. Even though they are no longer little kids, they have begun to do what kids do.

They are taking their own inventories and seeking reassurance that they did not cause or hasten what is raining down around us. Tears fall. We sit together and pray. I say over and over, “You did not cause this separation nor did you hasten it. Let's be as calm, reassuring, and encouraging of each other as we can. Let's not let this sadness wash the rest of what we are away.”

How do you celebrate a milestone, a birthday, when 'we' are no longer 'us'? What will happen to us next month or next year? What will we do for money? The questions have begun to mount as the sons get brave enough to ask. I repeat what I repeated with daily regularity when we were homeless:

God wastes nothing in his economy. He is a good God with a good plan. He will redeem our loss in his good time.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Inwardly, I grieve wondering if my words will be sufficient for any of us. There's school to do and chores to stay caught up on. There are decisions to make, activities to attend, and a new career to foster. I struggle against the tide of anger and frustration that over-washes us when we least expect the flood. After we are spent, I try to do the next thing despite the fatigue of brain, spirit, body, and soul.

I tell myself this new place is preferable over dancing on broken glass. When I am alone and it is safe, tears begin to fall. Early on, they are slow and quiet like the first spits of rain on a hot summer day. The soul-clouds holding back my agony reach the saturation point of no return. My sobs are thunderous and echo as if bouncing off mountain walls.

Did I give all I was to a cause that was lost from the beginning? Did I give up too soon? Should I have given up long ago and salvaged what I could? Who will I be when this mess is less a disaster scene and more a Superfund clean up site? Will my sons survive intact? Are they already broken beyond repair because of choices I made or did not make?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

My thoughts meander through the terrain of Biblical truth with which I am so familiar. God hates divorce. His mercies are new every morning. He makes all things new again. He turns our mourning to dancing. He will give us a heart of flesh for a heart of stone. He knew my days before one of them was numbered. The words seem as foreign as they do familiar because I have never walked this way before.

I look for poetry in the pain. I seek consolation in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. I tell my good God that I want to know him in the way that sets me free to say, “Jesus is too sweet for me not to trust him.” I am still that girl who wants to be his head cheerleader even after all these years and all this wrestling. 

And so tonight in the quiet of my waning tears, I whisper, “Even in this pain, I will trust in you. Give me strength to keep on walking and do so in such a way that others will see you when they see me.” 

Hello, fellow fraidy cat. Have you forgotten when walking on eggshells became dancing on broken glass? If you are walking a broken, lonely walk, I get your pain. You don't have to say a word. Just let me say, “You are always welcome here. Come back    again real soon and stay awhile?” 

Psalm 34: 18 (The Message)
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.