I sit out front of my house, swinging on the old porch swing. The air is stagnant around me and the sounds of summer drift to my ears- a radiator in the background, the small dancing song of birds singing to each other as the evening comes to an end, the sun drifting below the houses and the air finally cooling off. My skin burns as it tenaciously reminds me that I forgot to put any sunscreen on today when I went to the pool all afternoon.
"You look great on the outside, but how are you on the inside?"
That's the question I've gotten over and over.
I will tell you-
I'm completely devastated; absolutely broken hearted. But not broken.
I've been broken before. I've had my entire life snatched from me, and when I got that back, I had no idea if I would ever walk or study or laugh or play again. I've walked through Hell before; I know my way around.
I know how to mourn.
It is not as hard to have faith in a future that is full and bright when all I am filling in is someone who could simply not commit to me; as much as that was the only thing I wanted, in fact, as it turns out, the very thing I seemed to breathe for for so long.
My heart is broken. Sometimes I find myself bent in half trying to remember how to breathe when it hits me all of a sudden that the man I loved and wanted to marry has walked away.
However, I am strong, as much as some might say I am weak because I am emotional. I know how to choose faith when nothing makes sense. And I am healthy. And I am intelligent. And I am young. And I have a future.
I don't know how I ended up where I'm at right now. I got myself out of a hellacious employment situation that I expected to love and now I am home, in Boise. I don't have my best friend, the man of my dreams, at my side any more.
But I've managed to go out a couple of times with old friends. I have a date set up with someone I lack any interest in whatsoever. But I decided to go anyways.
I don't know how long it will take for me to be okay with guys smiling too much at me and asking to get to know me. I don't know how long until I don't randomly find myself gasping for air and reaching for my phone to call the man that I loved and beg for him to take me back. I don't know how long until I find myself enjoying social situations again and not longing for someone to knowingly smile at me as we meet new people, reminding me that no matter what, they love me and I am most important to them above all else.
But if I have learned one thing in my short life, it's that God does not leave us without something to grab onto; however small it is, he throws us a rope. He sends us a boat when our world is flooding in. My boat is a new job that I didn't know I could get, as a CNA. It's two more years in an amazing place where I can make an entire new set of friends and find someone who can decide to love me forever. It's Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, "Remember Lot's Wife" that reminds me again and again that I can claim the embers from the exceptional experience that was my relationship with Will, and not dwell on the ashes and the sorrow with which it ended.
I know how to mourn. But now, the challenge is, is to not only mourn. Now I can learn how to not allow my life to be defined by my pain. I can learn to love my life as it is, without wishing I were anywhere else or with anyone else. And I can use the challenge as an opportunity to work on things I need to focus on, like bettering my relationship with my family and relaxing my defensiveness in communication and helping refugees in the area and loving my patients more than myself.
It isn't about focusing on the pain the sunburn brings. Because how lucky I am that I got to spend an entire afternoon at a pool, talking to an old friend and basking in the beautiful summer sun. And how blessed am I to have a cool room in which to spend my time so that the burn doesn't worsen. And how lucky can I be that, hopefully, this sunburn will turn into a tan. Possibly skin cancer in the future, yes, but for now, I can have hope that it will toughen me up so that I don't get burned as badly next time.
God will help me heal; the more I help others, the faster I will heal.
No comments:
Post a Comment