Painful Reading

Most everything is painful these dyas so it isn't surprising that each chapter brings a new stab to my already broken heart. I'll have to address each chapter individually to try and disect it all. You'll have to forgive me, but I take in everything these days through the painful lenz of my current experiences, which since I am still trying to work though everything can be hard to hear.

Chapter 4 made me cry. All the horrible things that happen to people...it is easy to empathize with the broken and wounded when you are in that state yourself. Then there were the parent things. My own dad...love him so much and know he loves me and yet he doesn't speak the words often, something which has always left me crippled in a way. Three times I remember the words...the day in high school when I asked him why he didn't say it more often ("It's not as special that way"), my wedding day, and two weeks ago when he had to tell me to say whatever I needed to to my mom because she may not survive this ordeal. Then my mom...anything about moms makes me withdraw into a painful silence if not tears.

Chapter 5 - interesting because we had a Sunday School class on women and the teacher said she thought Satan had a special enmity for women, so this wasn't the first time I'd heard that idea, though I think I liked the way Stasi explained it much better...makes more sense to me than the other way it was explained. The issue of abandonment hit me hard. I'll admit it has always been one of my biggest fears...being abandoned, being alone. My parents had a solid marriage, my husband is very faithful, and yet it's always been there, a fear lurking in the dark. And now...somehow in my mind the one person who would never abandon me was my mom. She was the one who always loved me no matter what. She prayed for me, encouraged me, nurtured me, and gently pushed me towards Christ. As a woman I think I secretly felt that men could never quite be trusted, but women we are close to...they won't leave us. How do I feel now...painfully abandoned in a way I couldn't even imagine and that extends to my feelings towards God. "God, where are you, where were you that night and why have you seemingly abandoned me, my mom, our family?" Finally I fear abandonment from all those that are now helping us. What happens 2 months from now, 4, 6 , a year when we are still faced with this? Will everyone else stop praying? Stop helping? Stop remembering that we still live in perpetual painful limbo?

Chapter6 - Appropriately named, "Healing the Wound," I found this chapter intriguing and it made me wonder how I would have read or interpreted it differently just three weeks ago. The section on being afraid, on letting God rescue the frightened shaking little girl from under the bed...seems to speak to me both now and probably for my whole life...again my living so much in fear my whole life. I also found the section on letting the tears come so intriguing both for the many tears I've cried recently and for the beginning where it talks about trying to keep it all together. That is me...feeling I have to put up an appearance to everyone. Again, this is driven by pain and fear. I think I am definately seeing how pain and fear have driven and controlled me for so much of my life, though I think the realization of fear and its hold over me has been dawning on my concience for quite some time now.