The Hurt

Its inevitable.  If you run long enough, at some point a part of your body is going to start hurting.  I just ran my third half marathon, that’s 13.1 miles, and around mile 10 my knee started hurting.  It wasn’t an injury.  Thats quite a different feeling.  It was just my body responding the intense pressure I was putting it under by running this distance. 


As I thought about my knee, I remembered my winter runs at the local metropark, and how mysteriously around mile 2 my shins would start to hurt, and eventually, by mile 4 the issue resolved itself.  I thought back to last November when I ran my first half marathon, and my thighs started hurting at mile 10, by mile 11 the thighs were less intense and my calves began to act up.  This hurt was normal.


That’s how it goes with running. You put a demand on your body to perform, a faster pace, an insane distance, and it takes some time to work out the kinks.  Your body may hurt, but if you don’t give up, if you keep running, if you don’t let the hurt move you, it will work itself out.  The hurt surrenders to your drive and perseverance, and further down the path you realize the hurt is gone.  This doesn’t mean a new hurt may not take its place.  There are no guarantees that a half a mile down the path a different part of your body could begin to fight against the plan.  But as you continue to push, as you stay steady to your course, it works itself out. 

As the path led me out of the woods, onto the sidewalk, near mile 11, this reality hit me.  Run through the hurt.  I’ve had some intense demands on my life, I’ve been down some long and winding paths.  And along the way I got hurt.  Life just hurts sometimes.  There are no guarantees that it will be easy and pain free.  But when that hurt comes, we need to respond just like running a half marathon.  Keep running.  Don’t give up.  Don’t surrender to the pain.  Its not an injury.  It will not stop you or cripple you- unless you let it.  


Keep on your path.  Keep running.  Run through the hurt.  And in time, it will work itself out.  In time it will stop hurting.  And when it does you will suddenly be aware that you are closer to your goal than you realized.  You have a choice! When the hurt of life comes, you can stop and surrender, or you can run through the hurt, continue on your path, cross the finish line and receive your medal!

Broken

In my prayer time recently, I saw this picture of my heart, it was shattered into a million pieces, like broken glass.  After 11 months, its still broken.  My heart is broken from watching the man I love self destruct.  My heart is broken from the extreme situations I was in over the past few years.  My heart is broken from  burying my husband.  No one can see it.

It started with the phone call, "Your husband is in the emergency room, there has been an accident."  At that moment, the fragile glass which made up my heart, got a hairline crack.  Walking into the emergency room, and feeling all eyes on me.  A little more pressure on the crack.  And when they told me he had died... the crack started to spread.  And just like a crack in your windshield, it begins to spider.  One small crack, now resembles a web.  Multiple lines in different directions.  Still held together, but more fragile then ever.  As I walked into the room where he was laying, lifeless, touching his cold hand, saying "What did you do Jonathan?" More pressure, more cracks, this time deeper and longer.  But none of that compares to the pressure as I stood over my husband's casket, with my hand on the lid, lowering it down over the last glimpse I'll have of his face on this earth, the cracks drove so deep that my heart shattered in that instant.  No longer held together, but broken to pieces.  You couldn't see it, but that's what happened.

And since that moment my heart shattered, all I have wanted was for God to put the pieces back together.  At first I pretended it wasn't broken.  But you can't function long with a broken heart before you realize it. And once I realized it my prayer quickly became, "God, take my brokenness and make something beautiful." I've been praying this for months now.  And my desire to have my heart restored continues.  I just want to be done with this healing process.  Perhaps because its so uncomfortable, I really just want it to be over.  Maybe its because I want to feel the consistant joy of life again, that I'm trying to rush through the process.

Since that vision I saw of my heart a few days ago, God has continued to speak to me about brokenness.  He showed me that I need to stop focusing on being healed and rushing the process.  Brokenness is beautiful in God's eyes.  He uses the broken.  I need to let God do what He desires to do in me during this time and stop trying to "be done".  As I do I can see Him moving. He's been revealing my calling to ministry and drawing me to deeper levels, because of what I have walked thorough.  Because of my brokenness He can use me more powerfully.  I must truly let Him take my brokenness and make something beautiful.  I believe that beauty I'm praying for will be shown in the women's lives I touch.

There is something powerful about being broken before God.  My pastor, Richard Crisco, taught a powerful message on the power of brokenness this past Sunday. God draws near to the broken hearted.  I am sharing that podcast with you!  Whether you are a widow or not, there will likely be a time in your life when your heart will be shattered to pieces like mine.  When that happens, you are ripe for an encounter with God.  Some of the most life altering experiences with God come when we are broken before Him!

Click here to listen to Broken and Hungry, by Richard Crisco

Being Real

I realized if I was going to blog my journey, and invite people into my life, I had to be real.  I couldn't just give you one side of the story.  If you were to really understand what this widow's walk is all about you have to be a part of the good and the bad times.  Because let's be honest, there are both.  And in reading my blog on Monday, and then again on Tuesday, you see what a "yo-yo" a widow's life can be.  Its up, its down, even sideways.  Every night when you go to bed the reset button is hit.  Just because yesterday was beautiful doesn't mean today will be.  And vice versa.


When yesterday's post went live, I felt the slightest tinge of regret.  I thought, "am I letting people down because I had a hard day and wrote about it?"  I know that's not the truth, but admit it. You've felt that too. You have to be strong, "they" tell us.  Why? And who is "they"?  Have "they" ever spent a day or a week in your shoes? Have "they" ever planned their husband's funeral?  Have "they" ever told their children their father died? Have "they" had to raise a child on their own? Have "they" ever had to learn to handle everything related to their home and life?  The truth is "they" don't have a clue!


I'm here to say you don't have to be strong!  You don't have to wear a smile every time you see someone, or walk into the church sanctuary.  You don't have to do everything and be everything.  It's okay to have bad days... because you are going to!  And once you accept that truth, you'll find the bad days aren't as bad, because you don't feel guilty for having them.  For a long time I had this external pressure put on me that I had to look like everything was okay, and even more I was supposed to actually be okay.   I had this pressure that I couldn't have bad days.  When some one asked me how I was doing, I felt I had to answer positively.  But it wasn't the truth.  It was a mask, a facade.  I was taught that if I showed my weakness, and hurt that I wasn't giving God glory!  So I carried around hurt and pain.  I repressed it.  I denied it.  And when it arose, I would feel guilty.  I would question myself, "Why do I feel like this? What's wrong with me?" And the only thing that came from that was an emotional breakdown.

Unfortunately as Christians we are the worst at this.  The world knows you are gonna have bad days, and they expect you to tell the world when you do.  But step inside the church, and if you don't have a plastic grin on your face, you aren't a good Christian. You are labeled as having little faith, or you are "doubting" God.  The day I stepped out of this false reality, and entered a safe place, I started healing.  I started living healing.  I have been able to be myself, and share it.  And lightening has struck me yet, for being an ungrateful child!  Rather, quite the opposite has happened.  

When I began to share my struggles, even through a simple post on Facebook, something amazing happened.  People reached out.  They encouraged me, they prayed.  I realized that plastic faces rob the body of Christ from doing what God designed it to.  When we get real, the body steps up!  And that was exactly what I needed through those difficult times.  Just as Moses needed someone to hold up his arms so  Israel would win the battle, we need others to hold us up when we get tired.  We can't do it alone.  We are going to have bad days.  We are going to get tired.  We are going to be weak.  And God's okay with it.  


2 Corinthians 12:9-10 NLT
Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. ¹⁰ That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I'm not saying, lay around and feel sorry for yourself, or indulge in a pity party.  How is God's power working through that? Its not.  But I am saying, take off the mask.  Be real.  Be real with others and be real with yourself.  Ask for help when you need it.  Let people into your world.  They don't know what you are going through, and why certain events may be hard. But tell them if your struggling.  Give yourself the freedom to feel. Its all part of the healing process.  And remember at the end of those hard days, God hits reset as you sleep.   "Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning. "  Psalm 30:5  Tomorrow could be a better day.  Tomorrow could be full of hope.  Tomorrow could be the day where he turns your mourning into dancing.

The Beauty of Forgiveness

One of my "virtual" friends recently told me how amazed she was that I put together the memorial run for my late husband.  Knowing some of the poor choices he had made, and how they hurt me, she didn't think she would have been able to honor him in that way.  As I read it, I knew immediately why I was able to honor him, and show respect to a man who, because of his issues, dishonored me.  Its simple: forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a beautiful thing! It erases the hurt, and the pain.  It gives someone an emotional blank slate in your heart.  Forgiveness does not condone or agree with a person's decisions.  Forgiveness does not forget. I wish I could forget!  It would be easy to express forgiveness towards a person if you had no recollection of every wrong they had ever done.  But to remember, to know each and every hurt, and betrayal, and forgive anyway... now that's powerful!

Shortly after my late husband died, I was drawn to his grave site.  I had no idea why I was there.  I know his spirit is in heaven, and therefore all that remains is an empty shell of what was my husband.  So I stood at his grave, asking out loud "why am I here?"  And then it came, flooded with tears... "I forgive you Jonathan."  What... what did I just say?  I thought I had forgiven him.  Apparently there were more layers to forgive.  Forgiveness is continual.  You can forgive a person one time for one action, but repeated offenses require repeated forgiveness.  So I cried for a while, next to the barren pile of dirt which embraced my husband's body.  "I forgive you.  I forgive you."

I've been stirring on this topic for a few days now, and wouldn't you know it, today an old wound reopened.  I was reminded in a very real way of how my husband had dishonored me to his employees at work.  And even though he's been gone almost a year, and I have developed my own relationship with these employees, it still hurt.  I felt fresh blood, out of an old scab, one I thought had been healed.  I felt the new disappointment of just wanting him to adore me, to make me his world.  I questioned his love for me,  even though I have two letters he wrote me during the month before he died which reveal to me that love.  I felt embarrassed.  Most of all, I hurt.  And when that emotional sting arrises, so does the need to forgive.

Yes as I sit here writing about how wonderful it is to have forgiven this man who inadvertently brought so much pain, hurt, and struggle into my life, I find myself in need of forgiving him... again!  And who am I to presume this would be the last time?  During the course of my healing, perhaps even my life, I may find myself standing, kneeling, or sitting graveside, tears streaming down my face as I say, "I forgive you Jonathan.  I forgive you."