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I only meant to search and find the latest video on my phone. Google took that search into its own hands and popped up the “Best of November 2011!” Complete with video of the Happily Ever After that would never come to pass. I watched our old life back when you were alive and we lived blissfully ignorant in our home before the fire took it. Back before I knew God could do anything He wanted with our family, including taking one of you Home to be with Him.
There you were, playing with the dog in the snow. There was your voice. There was the expression you used to have on your face. There was the yard you grew up in, hedged in high trees that couldn’t protect you from the darkness in the world that would creep in and swallow you whole.
It felt like watching an old movie I hadn’t seen in years and had forgotten all about. It wasn’t endearing. It wasn’t a reliving of anything beautiful. It was just something that had happened in time before, like it had happened to someone else.
Is this what they call disassociation? Where all emotion is removed because it’s too painful to feel?
I call my life “the daily chore”. I know I have to be here, but it’s not a life that carries possibilities or anticipation. Life is something to hurry up and be over because I know what’s waiting for me on the other side. Living is a list of years to get through until my real life can begin when I finally get to heaven.
I was just reading Jeremiah and remarking how interesting it was that God reveals some of His characteristics in Jer. 32:40-41 There were some terms I hadn’t run across before, like God inspiring people to fear Him, and God rejoicing in doing us good, and acting toward us with all His heart and soul.
These are the things I cling to when my life feels like a chore. God is still God, He never changes. I am at His mercy and He will use my life for His kingdom as it pleases Him. I can trust Him for that and keep living my chore life. Until He lifts the dissociation in His own time.
Dear God, thank you for not bringing the full brunt of the pain. You know it would kill me like Jesus said He was “sorrowful unto death”. Sorrow unto death is real. Thank you for protecting me from that with disassociation. What a strange term that psychologists use, but You created it with us in mind the whole time. Thank you for letting me see Your Son full of sorrow but still living a life on this earth. He lived it for You, for us, and He is praying for us now, that our faith may not fail. It’s all I’ve got, and it’s enough. Kiss my boy for me. Tell him I’m clinging to You and I can’t wait to see him. In Jesus’ dear name I pray, amen.
