"Knowing what I know now, about God and His Sovereignty...
Somewhere there is a heart willing to listen to this story about this little girl, orange carpet, hollyhocks, a small town ...and violence. Somewhere there is surely someone who will read Your story and see the Grace and Mercy in your life...and God will use you to touch that person, for His Glory.

Your story touches my heart, Pat "

Friday, March 24, 2017

Emotional Cliff




       Control. When someone grows up without any control over their circumstances and those circumstances are chaotic, I wonder if they end up needing more control over things than normal?
  For ever I needed control. I remember when God opened my eyes to the fact I have none...not really. I can only control me...the way I act and react, how I treat others, my behavior etc.
Emotion is the first thing, especially for women that gets out of control. It is so easy to just give in and sometimes that is healthy and good, sometimes it is a willful self indulgence. There are times it is wrong, you know...pitching a fit, rage, snobbery and unforgiving.
There are times it is normal.
 I have always been under control, (ok play along with me) except for rage, for years that one had me, growing up with my circumstances bred rage. I stayed away from sadness and pity as much as I could because it was a manipulation of my mother to be a victim of everything- and I did not want to be a victim, so I was angry and IN CONTROL through that anger.
 God left me with many thorns but that hateful anger is something he wiped away. Not that I don't get angry...but that need for power through anger he took, he knew I couldn't rid myself of it.

However....I feel as though I am standing on an a new emotional cliff.  I want to say before you go further I want this post to be about us, not so much me. I know we all have stuff, hurts and disappointments, sometimes deep ones. This is for us, a baring of a soul and a glimpse of within.

  I cry....almost every day. I cry easily and I never used to. Am I depressed? I don't think so but I am deeply sad. September 14, 2015, a year and a half ago we lost our grandson. I had no idea how hard that would be. He was full term and died of a rare disease, I don't dwell on it....but it is there in every breath I take. I hurt deeply and I miss him and what could have or should have been.
 I hurt for my daughter and son in law, how awful it is to go home to an empty home without your baby.  I met a girl via Instagram that just lost her baby 6 weeks ago, when I saw her post I didn't just cry my normal tears but deep heaving hurt overcame me. I was transported back to those horrible days when my daughter got out of the hospital, so thick with sadness, so lost.

 I have some close to me that don't take up the slack or stand in the gap, in fact they exasperate things and make life harder than it needs to be. Sometimes the ones you need to lean on the most, have their own crap in the way and they just are not there and fall short or they may even make life difficult.

I miss my son, he is right here...in this town but his heart is so distant and it hurts. It just hurts.
My father is sick....and his time is limited on this earth, and I am not ready for that.
My dog isn't healthy and she has accidents on the floor which has become a source of stress in our life, not so much for me but.....

so I cry. Every day I cry, sometimes a few tears and other days my face is soaked and my nose is stuffed.

Why do I cry so easily? Why are emotions so close to the surface? Why does life hurt so
 sometimes without any promise to get better?
 How do I tell the girl on Instagram in a year and a half your heart will still hurt so deeply? How do you help your child? How do you talk to someone without ears? How do you make someone's heart soft? How do you make someone care? How do you.......
How do you????
How.
How do you get through hard times, times that seem without end?

 You just breath, you cry if you need to, talk to who will listen. Luckily I have some great friends that will listen.
Do you listen? That is something I struggle with. Listening often means you don't get to talk, or you talk much less than you like. I would like to be a better listener.


God will always listen and we know he is a good listener because we usually struggle to hear him talk.
So back to how... how do you......
 YOU don't. God does.
God heals, he softens hearts, he gives ears to hear. He gets you through although it may be long and hard. So hard.
Pray and trust and wait. He is in control.
I trust God, and he promised me he would hold me, and my daughter and little Caleb, my son in law, my husband, my son, my dad and .....my dog. He holds my life and I can rest in that and I can cry. I can cry deeply and I can hurt deeply and I can still be ok.
I can stand on an emotional cliff and not fall off.
So can you. If your life is a mess, if it is less than you hoped, if you hurt or are angry and your cliff is before you, fall back, not off. Let God catch you, he's there.

My daughter with Caleb from Molly Bears



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey Shannon,

Again I have to say "Thank You" for allowing us to go on this journey with you. I am so sorry for the pain that you had to suffer as a little girl. No little girl deserves that. I wish I could be your mother for just a little while. I would tell you that it is not your fault and that I was wrong. I would ask your forgiveness for all of the things that I did to hurt you and wish that I could go back and do it over again and love you the way a mother should love her daughter. We make a lot over the verse in Isaiah that says, "by His stripes we are healed" and sometimes we forget about the part that says , "He was chastised so that we could have peace." He was there all the time and now He can let you know that He already knew you and already experienced your pain at the cross.
We also thank you and Larissa for allowing us the privilege of getting to know Caleb from the time that you knew he was coming until now. We hold you in our prayers as someone who has felt the pain of not only losing a grandchild (Natalie would be 20 this year) but trying to comfort a daughter and son-in-law while hurting so badly yourself.
Keep Caleb out there for all of us so we can remember. King David said that his son could not come back to him, but that one day he would go to be with him. You will all be reunited together one day and spend eternity introducing him to all of us and we will rejoice together.
Until then, you continue to pour yourself out as a "drink offering" for those who are hurting and let them know that there is hope in Christ and also a very happy ending to your story.
I love you all,
Madlyn