“There are none like you among the gods, O Lord
nor are there any works like yours.”
~Psalm 86:8~

It’s been a week since the game and I still have not completely recovered. I’ve written and rewritten countless words to try and write again, to not leave the gaps between the posts here so long. Sometimes though, the words don’t feel right, they don’t sit right in my chest, like I’m trying too hard to make this something it’s not, or saying too much that shouldn’t be said, and so I don’t say a word, waiting for the block on my chest to be lifted, that’s only lifted with the truest and the least dramatic of the story’s version.

If I have cried any mostly I have done so in private. I know this time hasn’t been easy for me, but it hasn’t been easy for my husband or kids either. Seeing your mom not herself can be kind of scary thing. Having a husband with three jobs, now back to two, trying to also juggle the added burden of a wife who isn’t well has not been easy for him I’m sure. I’ve tried to have mercy on my kids and reassure them when they ask me if I’m good that I’m good, and I haven’t been lying. But every so often I have lost it in front of them, and last night was one of those nights again, where whatever composure I’ve been feebly holding together was lost. “You okay, Mom?”, and no, I am not okay.

The two big kids started school this morning. This puts two now in high school, and I’m happy for both of them. There’s always that swelling of your heart during times like this when there comes a new milestone and “letting go” of your kids, but sometimes I think I’ve only made these parting pains worse with the homeschooling. Bonds are great, but these bonds hurt to break. The cutting of the cord did not at all hurt the first time, but every time since has been it’s own unique version of terrifying and excruciating.

And while the tears ran freely, and after my husband sat down in the rocking chair next to me and heard the litany of everything including, ‘And the phone we just reloaded their minutes on is already lost, and now they can’t call us, and I can’t even call them”, he did something completely uncharacteristic and surprising. He started quoting a long-forgotten scene from Dumb and Dumber, when Harry and Lloyd were sad, stressed, and despairing. The laughter that came out of the depths from within me so forcefully expelled the lump in my throat I’d been choking on, similar but different, and sort of like the time I told him that I couldn’t keep fighting, and fighting would be the completely wrong word for my life right now, because fighting implies that I am slaying these giants, that I am somehow able to make it one more day in the glaring falsehood of my own strength. If there is one thing I have seen from the very beginning, it’s that there is absolutely no working, no determining my way out of this. There is no more of my own will to rely on, because my iron will is melting into a puddle to be evaporated slowly.

Have mercy on me, O Lord
According to your steadfast love
According to your great mercy
Blot out my transgressions

I cried out to the Lord
and he answered me
He answered me from his holy hill

Arise, O God!
Will the depths praise you?
Do the bones that you
have broken rejoice?

Will they?

Answer me, O God, for
I am pitiful and needy
I am poor in the house
of the Lord and in your sight

and beloved

I am not trying to sound or be dramatic, but at times it all starts to feel like too much. Every so often I start to feel like I’m fading and needing some hope or a change in circumstance (like a positive change in health) in order to feel like I’m doing okay. There was the time when my hands and my feet weren’t cold in the evening, and my heart and my soul said, “Praise the Lord”. There was the time where I could sit up in the chair, and my heart wrote it down, and I said “Thank you, Lord, for hearing my prayer.” It just seems like it’s taking longer this time to come, and I couldn’t even bring myself to ask the Lord to have mercy, because I could not bear the thought of his divine answer being no. I don’t want to stay here, and I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to take one more step into the unknown. I am haunted by fears and by slithering terrors, and this year has been difficult, and I am wanting right now to know the ending of all of this. Trials prepare us for future trials, for future glories, for future better days when we remember none other than the only God who made us, who was determined to carry us out of every misery and decadence, far and away from any forces far too far away from Love.

I’ve Seen Too Much
by Andrew Peterson

I know it sounds crazy
But I know what I saw
When the sun came up on the brightest day
From the darkest night of all

I saw the man die
They laid Him in the tomb
And I know cause I saw it with my own two eyes
When He stepped into the room

And I’ve seen too much, too much to deny
I’ve seen too much, too much to say goodbye

So we scattered to the four winds
To tell them what we know
But I get so tired and the doubt creeps in
And the doubt won’t let me go

And it’s all I can do to get up in the morning
All I can do to stand up in the storm
When all I remember is the passing form
A glimpse of the glory before it was gone

And I get so tired of this ridicule
But I cannot deny what I know to be true
Cause I’ve seen too much
What else can I do?
Where else can I go, Lord?
Where else can I go but to You?

I’ve seen too many faces
All shining like the sun
I’ve seen too many skies on fire
Like the face of the Holy One

I’ve seen too many eyes wide open
That once were so blind
All burning with the beauty of the same love
The same love that opened mine

And I’ve seen too much, too much to deny
I’ve seen too much, too many points of light
I know too much, I saw the scars and touched His skin
That’s how it was, and I cannot hold it in

I’ve seen so much that cannot be explained
And I realize it’s a mystery of faith
But my friend was dead and He walked out of the grave
And I knew the world would never be the same

I saw too much, when I looked into the eye
Of the One I love and the One who loves me
And there was nowhere left to hide

I’ve seen too much, too much to deny
I’ve seen too much, too much to say goodbye
Too many points of light, too much to say goodbye