Prayers for a Zombie in the Midst of an Apocalypse-pt.1

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The crushing realization came in the midst of a season of crushing moments. After months of anticipation, it was clear that my plans to attend an August conference were in shambles. God had closed the door in a painful, ugly way I still cannot understand. I don't think I ever will.

As I dealt with fractured relationships intertwined with the fractured plans, I kept telling myself God wastes nothing in his economy – not even well laid plans, disappointments, or broken relationships. I tried to believe the PR I was weaving on God's behalf. Let's just say my inner PR campaign fell short of comforting me. 

My brother–benefactor and I began to look around for another plan. Allume, a social media conference, was on my 2013 'wish list' because the 2012 conference sold out before I discovered it. At his prodding, I began a quest to snag a ticket despite the fully booked status. I was begrudging as I searched thinking I was wasting my time and burning up more hopes. I just didn't want another crushing blow at a time of utter emptiness.

I watched the Allume Twitter stream and Facebook pages as cancellations popped up and tickets landed in other folks' hands. The truth is, I gave up and began to settle into a comfortable state of grief over the way God was working, or not, in my life. When I least expected it, a note landed in my inbox. In the space of forty-eight hours, I had booked conference and airline tickets as well as a hotel room. I think I'm still in shock. 

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

When my August conference plans fell apart, I had no idea my marriage was going to implode with even more drama. Nor could I have known those events would unfold within days of confirming my Allume attendance. Ignorance is bliss until realization dawns cold and ugly.

As the shower of words rained down around me giving me to know that I was now 'that woman', the fifty-plus year old facing divorce after over twenty years of marriage, I ceased to breathe, plan, or feel. I could only move through the days on zombie auto-pilot. You have to laugh. 

After the last decade, I'm pretty sure I don't know how to operate on anything other than zombie or zombie-standby mode. I've had my apocalypse preparedness kit in place since long before it was the trendy media joke.

What to do about the conference? If I bailed, my brother would have sacrificed so much for nothing. Given the tight time frame between my separation and the conference, I set my face like flint and followed through. Who knew? Maybe the trip would be just what I needed to soothe my separation scarred psyche and soul.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I survived the flights in a manner that would make my fellow fraidy cats stand up and cheer. Since I was on zombie-pilot, nary an eyelash quivered when I realized my connecting flight was landing as my final flight was boarding. Have you ever had to get from one end of Dulles in DC to the other in that situation? Let's just say, I rock.

I didn't even run through the airport. I stopped for the bathroom in sight of my departure gate. See. I told you. I was a zombie. The gate attendant hustled me on board just before they locked the jet door. Before I knew it, a Harrisburg, PA airport police officer was helping me locate my hotel shuttle. He-he-ha-haw. If I keep doing this kinda thing, I'm gonna outgrow my fraidy cat status and have to change the name of this pitiful little blog.

The conference center hummed with exclamations and conversations as established bloggers met others they'd only known in cyberspace. I surveyed the scene and realized these were mostly young, trendy gals. You know the type: no cellulite or gray hair, grew up with hand held electronics at the ready, cool enough to make horn-rimmed glasses look so hip you feel like you'd die without a pair.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I gasped for air hoping to see someone that looked as disoriented as me. Was there anyone else in the entire event like me: cellulite from neck to calves, gray hair that had not experienced the kindness of salon treatments, can't spell iPad or YouTube correctly much less use them, and looks like your grammaw's childhood librarian if she gets too close to horn-rimmed glasses.

Yep. I was a fraidy cat mess. Too sure I was too unhip to be a blogger much less a cool one that anyone would want to follow on Twitter. Sure I should run to my room and enjoy the next 2.5 days on invisible hiatus eating room service vs enjoying the catered meals. Screaming, “God, why am I here, and why did I do this to me – now of all times when I am a nothing, a no one, and a failure. All these women are young and cute and hip and headed somewhere with an audience big enough to make them a 'success' by my pitiful blogging standards!" 

And yet, there I was in the middle of all that community waiting for the God who wastes nothing in his economy to redeem my season of loss. How was I to know that the prayers of a stranger I still have not met would be a pivot point in my life as a zombie. 

Courtesy B. Creasy

Psalm 90: 14-15 (NIV)

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.

In the Company of Brokenness

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I have been here before, but the terrain is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I have been the new girl. I have never been this new girl. I move on autopilot as if swept along by an invisible tide of humanity. In truth, only one or two stragglers are moving with me. One of them looks at me with a question in her eyes, “Do you know where you are heading?” 

We pause because she has guessed rightly. I do not know where I am headed. I am stunned that I am here. She points me in the direction of the visitor's center. I have practiced my next line for over a week: in the car running errands, in the mirror after brushing my teeth, and on and on it has gone. I have practiced as if the line will be the first spoken at the opening of a new Broadway show. In truth, my only goal is to complete it without collapsing into tears.

I loathe the moment those awkward words will slip from my lips. I anticipate the pained smile about to wash over the face of the kind one who is about to see me for who I am. When I ask, she will know that I am asking to join the company of brokenness. The greeter looks up and knows before I speak. I see it on her face just as she sees it on mine. She nods with wordless empathy as the words 'Divorce Care' seal her educated guess.

I am lucky. I get a two-for-one reaction. She hands me off to a runner who all but leads me by the hand to my destination. “I am so sorry.” What more can she say when she knows anything more would be insufficient still.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I try to glide through the door knowing all eyes will turn to me – the new one who is starting six weeks out of sync. Disjointed thoughts chase me as I move forward. Shouldn't they issue passports upon entry, I wonder. I feel like a foreigner in a country whose language I do not speak. I am in a God-forsaken place.

Another face greets me with muttered words of solace. I smile and coo while trying to pretend I hear every word she says. I try even harder to pretend I care. The cacophony echoing in the room is enough to deafen me. They are in the company of friends. The camaraderie of pain has sealed them into a tight and cohesive group in six short weeks. I am the new girl who is starting late.

My pain will have to find a home among any cracks and crevices that remain as yet unsealed in the evolving group dynamics. I cannot catch up with my own life. How can I catch up with theirs and make it blend with mine? I am tired of being the new girl. Now I am the new girl in the land of brokenness staring into vacant space as stories begin to wash over me.

My mind wanders in and out of the room first replaying a scene in my own life and then flitting back into the present just in time to absorb a passing detail of the lives around me. It is not a dream. I am in the company of brokenness.

We are mostly me. Women who have launched or are launching children. I am stunned that we outnumber them – the young ones who are young and savvy and fit and lovely. If I saw them on the street, I would wish I were still young like them. I would wish I was them. I would have no clue that they were broken too.

Laughter startles me when it ripples across the room both often and with abandon. I try but fail to mask the startled jerks that overcome me every time the ripples rain down around me. At times I smile, but the smile does not hide my shock. I am ready for this, this season, to be over. Even in my shock I know it has only just begun.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative 

I look across at the face of the funny one who has mostly sparked the laughter. In my other life, I am her – the comic relief among my friends. I know her face and voice but not her story. Only after the class is over do I know why I know her. She reminds me of our common friends and our times spent together in the company of those friends.

She and others wish me well and invite me back. I wander out as the same trance that carried me in moves me back home. The words pour out of the quiet of my soul in search of my good God and his good plan. “Show me. Show me the next step and next. Lead me to that place where I can say, 'Jesus is too sweet for me not to trust him.' Do not tarry for I am faint of heart.”

If you or someone you know is facing divorce, click on this link: Divorce Care

Psalm 51: 17 (Amplified Bible)

My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 40:11 (Amplified Bible) Withhold not Your tender mercy from me, O Lord; let Your loving-kindness and Your truth continually preserve me! 

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.

Seven Things I Miss About Me

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I wonder who I am now. I have been defined for twenty-three years as wife and mother. Everything else about who I was flowed out of those two labels. Now that the 'd-word' bomb has exploded in my life, our lives, the future looks even more scary than it did when 'all' I faced as a rapidly approaching empty nest. I feel dizzy at the thought.

I have moments of calm clarity that crumble into bouts of breath-taking apprehension. I wonder how I ended up where I am given all I did not to be here. I wonder who I used to be. I wonder who I will be and if I ever will be again.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I realize that much of what I have been through has made me who I am now. Those same events have robbed me of who I am as well. Is that the ultimate contradiction? I compare these two statements and my breath begins to come in raggedy gasps until I wonder if I need a peremptory 80mg dose of Aspirin.

I practice my anti-anxiety attack strategies until my heart is not on the blacksmith's anvil anymore. Then, I wonder what happened to the me I used to be? I squint and will back the curtain of time straining to remember what it was that made me simply 'me' before I was complicated 'us'.

I used to do beautiful embroidery – cross-stitch and crewel and another needle art whose name I can't even remember now. That's how much of me is lost. The last time I completed a piece, it was rejected because it was imperfect. I put my soul into the project. While the shirt still hangs ignored in the closet, that part of my soul did not survive rejection. 

I used to make baskets. I loved the rhythmic motions of the ins and outs of twining reeds until something that had never existed rested on the table before me. I wonder how I let that slip away too? What made me think  giving up all that made me who I was would placate anyone for any length of time?

I wanted to paint. Not walls out of necessity but folk art kinds of projects. Once when it seemed safe to do so, I slipped away and took a three hour class. As I had come to expect, I returned to a home in chaos. I learned to make myself content with a trip to the grocery store and let the dreams of art slip away. 

I miss the sound and feel of handbells. I know it is too froo-froo and too high church for most folks these days. But, oh, there is nothing like holding those bells and waiting till it is your turn to join in and help make the magic happen.

I miss the sound of my music coming from piano keys. I take consolation in hearing one son play the bass guitar and the other play the piano and keyboards. In the still and quiet of the late night when I am here all alone, I wonder what it would be like if I could still play with abandon.

2010

I used to love to read. Anxiety induced ADD makes it hard to read more than what I write. I tell myself I will read again as stress ebbs farther and farther away. I tell myself.

I miss the me that used to believe in me. Little by little she was whittled away as I tried to cope with and hold back the tide that always threatened to wash us away. We did not survive, and I gave up all I was for naught. Was it worth the fight? I guess time will tell.

The night has become the early morning. Before I am ready, I will begin again and hope I get today 'more right' than I got yesterday. I will breath deeply and tell myself this stress is better than the old ones. I will tell myself that the new horizon I am walking toward will be a calmer one. If I look hard enough, I am hoping I will see the old me waiting up ahead. Waiting for me to catch up with her before it is too late. I wonder if she missed me as much as I've missed her.

Psalm 71: 20 (NLT)

You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth.

I Am That Woman

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I am the broken one who hides behind humor and a smile. I am the one who asks, “How are you?” and then coo's and murmurs and bathes you in empathy so serene you never guess the truth. Because I do what I do, you miss the vacant stare behind the smile. If I was still long enough and you looked closer, you would see the vacancy signaling a pain deeper than anything I can put into words. 

I am the one who labors in the trenches thinking tomorrow will be a better day. I go through the motions thinking hard work and perseverance can overcome this present pain. Until I know I have done all I can do until there is nothing left to do. Then, there is nothing left to do. But wait. Wait on the good God with the good plan to show me what is coming next.

The face staring back from the mirror is the statistic I never wanted to be: the woman facing divorce after almost twenty-four years of marriage. This has been a hard fought marriage with many, many counselors and an infinite number of prayer warriors all aimed at patching up brokenness that never seemed to end. From where I sit today, all the effort, mine and theirs, was wasted.

Time has gone and cannot be regained. The monster that has dogged our steps every day of marriage finally caught up with us and washed us away. Even a 2nd wedding could not patch up what was broken before it began. God hates divorce. His mercies are new every morning. Hope springs eternal. Random thoughts come and go. They always end with, “I am that woman now.”

I think about the days of death and dying and wonder why, “Fire on the mountain, run boys run,” does not pound through my soul now as it did then. I am just as numb with grief. I am that woman.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

My gift of words fails to describe my exhaustion. I sleep but do not rest. I wonder how long it has been that sleep and rest went hand in hand. I breathe deeply trying to quell the sadness and panic threatening to overcome me. I look back and know that all the hard things I have already endured have been my boot camp. 

This monstrous thing is hard. Suffocatingly hard. Watching your mother sign the orders to turn off her life support systems – that was the P90x of preparation for this horrible, nasty moment. I endured those endless days in ICU. I will get through this challenge the same way I got through that one. Intact. 

Instead of the relentless beat of the Marshall Tucker Band, the only words that come are whispered: 

So, this is what it is to be that woman. 

I wonder when the backlash will start. When will the Christians begin to whisper? When will the, “God hates divorce,” emails and phone calls commence? I am prepared. I will look into the eyes of the women who try to mop up my mess with their inexperienced words of wisdom, and I will know.

I will know that when they least expect it and believe their hard work has been sufficient to prevent it, they might find themselves looking into my mirror. And so, I will smile the smile that covers up the vacancy in my soul and coo and murmur and reassure until they forget their original mission.

I will do so to leave the door open wide enough for them to overcome shame and fear and come back again. When they look into their mirror and see my face, when they are shocked to think, “Now it is me, Now, I am that woman,” I want to know I left the door open for their return.

And now, now I sit and wait. I wait on my good God to be faithful to his good plan because no matter what, I believe. I sit with my sons, and we pray. There is a good God, and he is too sweet not to trust. So, we pray for the strength to trust no matter what.

I choose again today to trust him even with this pain that I could not out run. And, in the end, I hope to say for once and for all: Jesus is too sweet not to trust him. I can commend him to you because he was sweetest when the pain was greatest.

Many thanks to all who bear my burdens. You are too numerous to name, but you are Heaven sent gifts. Thank you for teaching me and inspiring me. Thank you for strengthening me. Especially to Jackie for uttering the words, “Jesus is too sweet for me not to trust him.”

Ephesians 5:1-2 (The Message)

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

Chance Encounters

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I was consumed by my own anxiety. I had arrived at the airport 3 hours early only to find the flight canceled. I queued up with the other airline refugees in a controlled frenzy. We looked like bees swarming, and the hum in the air made others look twice.

Something about her penetrated my quiet panic. I was on the phone with my husband trying to ascertain the correct course of action. Could I make it home on the last flight into our regional airport? I saw her, and she held my attention for a few minutes.

Maybe it was because she looked like she had just walked off a NYC runway during Fashion Week? I think it was her composure and her animated conversation with the fellow refugees in line. She looked like the kind of person that easily befriended others – the kind of person you wanted to befriend.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I moved on to my unfamiliar rounds and forgot her. Five hours after my original flight, I boarded the rescheduled flight praying it would be as empty as the first one had looked to be. In a perfect world, I'd end up on the 3-seat side without anyone to invade my space. And there she was. Window seat to my aisle seat. We both nodded a warm acknowledgment and prepared to do what airplane riders do while in transit.

We celebrated the empty middle seat and exchanged a few other pleasantries. I decided my original, fleeting impression was correct. Cheerleader/beauty queen type who had lived a life I had only dreamed of. The kind of physical beauty that made men look twice but an inner beauty that would keep women talking to her if given a chance. Those clothes. Oh my. Something I could have only dreamed of wearing even in my young and thin days of long ago. I commented on her boots, the colors of which matched the turquoise in her trendy top.

I had to laugh at myself as we both settled in behind our respective reading materials. I didn't want to read. I wanted to talk to her. My husband's parting words to me when I had left 7 days before had been, ”Remember! Don't talk to strangers!” He said it mostly in jest. After 22 years, he knows me. I never met a stranger whose brain I didn't want to pick.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Soon enough the flight was ending. The engine whine began to dim. She popped out her ear buds, turned to me, and began to talk. And then, I saw it. Lines of weariness hinted at a heaviness of spirit that had nothing to do with our arduous flying day.

She beamed with pride as she told me of her children. One was an honor roll sophomore in high school. The other, she said, was in K5. I weighed my words as I asked about her parental status guessing rightly that she was a single parent.

The colors of sadness, regret, and brokenness illuminated her face as she explained her decision to remain far from her extended family. She wanted to keep her children close to their hero dad. She avowed his hero status despite the failure of their marriage. Some words tumbled out as if they were a relief to say. Others...I could see that others wanted to come flooding out, but time and circumstances would not allow. How I longed to put us into suspended animation so that we could talk on and on. 

Courtesy B. Creasy

Tears sprang into my eyes. I patted her forearm and told her how courageous she was to be so proactive for her children and their dad. Her breath came out a little ragged around the edges. She wasn't used to that kind of affirmation perhaps? I asked if either had remarried. They had not. My heart skipped a beat.

I wanted to ask all the whys and whats that came to mind. I wanted to ask if there might not be a chance of reconciliation. I heeded my husband's caution knowing I could not tread on such sensitive ground with so little time between us. Someone! Stop the clock. We need time! 

We talked on as the plane continued its progress toward the terminal. Time was running out. It was then I remembered. I had just networked with a new and vibrant friend. Her blog exists for the encouragement of teen girls whose families are affected by divorce. I remembered I had 2 business cards. I hurriedly dug one out and offered it as a token of my support for that hurting mom and her daugther. 

 

In Loving Memory and Courtesy of Christina Jones Hooker

When the flight had been canceled, I could have fallen apart as did some of the other airline refugees I had the chance to observe. The fraidy cat in me wanted to collapse from fear of what, when, and how to fix the mess in which I found myself.

Instead, I chose to quiet my fainting heart and watch. I wasn't sure what I was watching for, but I had a sense something uncommon was going to happen. What if? What if my flights had gone on as planned, and I had made it home in time to tuck myself into my own bed?

I never would have met that lovely, lovely creature. I never would have shared those few precious words as the flight was coming to an end. She has been heavy on my heart every day since. I wonder. Will she recognize herself in the pages of my blog? Will she even come? Will she remember Sherry's blog and seek solace there as well for both her and her daughter?

My heart yearns to know both the answers to questions I didn't get to ask and the stories she didn't get to tell. I was watching. Because I was watching, I saw her. I hope she found strength in the encounter. 

Hebrews 13: 12 (Word English Bible)

Courtesy B. Creasy

Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it.