Broken and Victorious

Not going to lie. Everything still hurts. In the back of my mind I guess I’ve always had this unconscious belief that with enough time, things would get easier and life would move on. It’s been almost two years since we lost Aly, our 20 year old daughter. Her birthday is in one week – she would be 22. Instead of birthday presents, we’ll be putting flowers on her grave. That thought is like a knife to the heart.

I have days where I want to run away and hide from the world, days where I want to scream and yell at God and anyone who will listen, and days where I just want to curl up in the fetal position and hide in my closet.

People are constantly telling us how strong we are and what great role models we have been throughout this grieving process, but we don’t feel like we are. We have many days where we feel like we’ve failed through everything. I wrote a book on the subject and yet feel like I can’t implement any of those “amazing” revelations in my own life.

The truth is that revelation without application is just information.

Life is difficult. We all know that. There is not a single person reading this blog that hasn’t experienced extreme disappointment of one kind or another. Most of the time we experience disappointment after disappointment. The hits just keep on coming. We question everything in the aftermath of those times – our intelligence, our identity, our purpose, our faith. Having those thoughts is not the problem – it’s when we refuse to get up and change course that we find ourselves in a very dark place. We may know all the truth, we may have a revelation, but we have yet to apply it in our lives or apply it to that particular situation.

For me, it wraps itself in a lack of motivation. I allow my spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional fatigue to dictate my actions. Some might call it “lazy”, but I disagree. It’s discouragement that borders on depression. It steals your motivation and tries to kill your drive to get up and get moving.

King David dealt with these things often. He battled discouragement and depression – if you doubt me, just read the Psalms. It’s all right there – he holds nothing back. He vents, he yells, he begs, he complains, and he criticizes. You know what he does after he gets it all out? He praises. He worships. He “strengthened himself in the Lord.”

“Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.” I Samuel 30:6

I’ve found this passage a little hard to swallow sometimes. What does that even mean? How do I “strengthen myself in the Lord?” David holds the key. Read the Psalms. Here is a man that failed as much or more than he succeeded. He made horrible choices that resulted in terrifying and murderous consequences. I dare say there are few people, if any, reading this blog that have made the kind of mistakes David made.

But David had the ability to worship and then to ALLOW God to bring His healing power. It’s a complete package. Sometimes we just want to worship without the other aspects of restoration. But, we have to allow Him to heal us. We have to bring the pain out in the open and let it go. It’s about vulnerability and transparency. Letting go of our pain is a significant part of it. For me, I tend to want to bury it or hide it – pretend it’s not really there – while I worship. It doesn’t work that way. Sure, when I worship, there is peace, there is joy, but ultimately, the pain will find me again – and all the friends that pain brings with it to the party – self-hatred, self-pity, anger, disillusionment, discouragement, depression and so many others.

Look, I’m not there yet. Honestly, I’m just thinking out loud most of the time (which is why much of what I write may seem to “ramble”). I hate dealing with pain…because it’s painful. Imagine that? I do know this, we serve a Father that is “near to the brokenhearted” as David writes in the 34th Psalm. And he would know. David constantly laid his heart bare before the Lord.

BUT, when we pretend that nothing is broken, we deny ourselves the opportunity to be loved on and comforted by an amazingly loving, kind and compassionate Father. We tend to use the phrase, “he wears his heart on his sleeve”, as a negative statement. When you’re being vulnerable with God, wear your heart on your sleeve and let Him come near. He is waiting to transform your brokenness into your greatest place of victory.

Peace.