Giving Up

 

Where do you go when there is nothing left?  When you have moved into the anger part of the grieving process?

At this point in life, we are all old enough to know the stages of grief.  Anger is one of them.

I think I'm there now.  I am just dead on the inside this morning.

"Okay, Lord.  It's 3:30 a.m.  I'm awake.  What do you want from me?  I got nothing."

Coffee made, laptop open.  "What do you want from me?  I don't get it God.  Why would you allow me to go down this road?  If you knew it was going to end up this way, and I was never going to be chosen, why would you allow me to be here?"

I've spent the last five weeks getting counsel from a wise and trained professional at work.  I've sat and listened to my brother.  I've listened to my cousin give what she calls "being raw with you." 

All advice is 100% the same, whether it came from a trained professional or a loving family member.  "You are enough.  It was the relationship that wasn't enough.  It wasn't you that wasn't chosen.  Another relationship was chosen as greater than yours."

Grief, in whatever form it comes, is tough.  Death, divorce, seperation of loved ones.  Whatever form you are experiencing, it is taxing.

So my rawness with God this morning (after all I have been through with Him) was just that, "I got nothing for you this morning.  Nothing.  I feel nothing.  God, I'm just empty and dead on the inside this morning.  Now what do you want me to do?  It's 3:30.  I'm up and wide awake.  Tell me."

Silence.

Great.  I'm getting used to silence.  I'm getting used to waving my hand and saying, "Hey!  I need help.  I'm drowning over here," and hearing, "That's great!  Have a nice swim!" in return.

You'd think a call for help would elicit a knee-jerk response of, "Hold on!  I'm coming!  You're not going to drown.  I'm here.  I'm going to help you!"  But it doesn't always...

In these sink or swim moments, we learn to swim better.  Harder.  Stronger.  As my cousin told me, "What people don't understand is when we get hurt - when they hurt us - we just get stronger, and we eventually find out we don't need them.  We come from a long line of strong women in this family."

But what happens when you don't want to learn to swim on your own?  You want a life preserver thrown out to you?  You want to be rescued?

Sometimes, you don't get the things the heart wishes for - and in those instances, you have to swim in order to survive.

I've learned in the last five weeks, that I am enough, but that my love or the relationship I was a partner in for five years was not enough.  It was apparently not great enough to survive a competing family relationship.  My partner did not throw out the life preserver.  And five weeks later, no help has ever arrived to save me from drowning.  The empty shores of the lake I am drowning in remain silent and still.  No one is coming.  A sure sign a decision has already been made.

So God.  Why do you have me up at 3:30 a.m.?  Tell me again?

Silence.

Okay, God.  Maybe someday I'll understand your ways.  This morning, I do not.

This morning, I opened up my reading and Billy Graham (one of my favorite writers) said:

The Home

The first essential for a happy Christian home is that love must be practiced. Homes that are built on animal attraction and lust are destined to crumble and fall. Love is the cohesive force that holds the family together. True love contains an element of spiritual mystery. It embodies loyalty, reverence, and understanding. Love imposes a tremendous responsibility on all members of a family, but it is a responsibility accompanied by glorious rewards. “Love,” says the Bible, “even as Christ . . . loved the church, and gave Himself for it.” How did Christ love the church? He loved it despite its faults, its mistakes, and its weaknesses. True love does not fail. It loves despite personality defects, physical blemishes, and mental quirks. Love is deep, abiding, and eternal. Nothing can bring a sense of security into the home as true love can.

Great God.  This is what I open up my Bible to?  The Home?  "...the first essential for a happy Christian home?"  Well, I have certainly failed here.  Three times to be exact.

"Love is the cohesive force that holds the family together.  It embodies loyalty, reverence, and understanding.  Love imposes a tremendous responsibility on all members...but it is a responsibility accompanied by glorious rewards."

"Love as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it."

"Love despite defects, blemishes, and quirks.  Love is deep, abiding, and eternal.  Nothing brings security as true love can."

Okay, I hear you - but I'm still angry.  Angry for a love that was taken away - but I'm left wondering, "Why was it given in the first place?"  Angry with a partner that can't understand that fear is not from above, and that Scripture once again plainly says, "Nothing brings security as true love can."  Angry that I gave five years of my life to a pathway I thought was ending in a union of two lives, but instead, it was a pathway that lead to being not chosen and put in second place.

I hear you God.  I can't fix everyone or another person's heart.  I can only fix me and mine.

Thank you Lord for the open doors you have provided the last two weeks.  For a friend that reaches out from time to time to say, "You can't hermit away forever; remember that."

For the new work opportunity of being a chaperone to one of the biggest gaming events in the Southeast and being a part of our new gaming club (I love those kids).

For the invitation to work at our church and be a part of both women's groups.

Thank you God for providing when I am hurting, confused, and just plain 'ole empty on the inside.

I don't know why you have me up so early, but I guess I'll find out.  I love you Lord, and I am so thankful for each person in my life.  Each person, professional, family member, and girlfriend that keeps reinforcing in my tiny brain, "You are enough."

Maybe one day the grieving process will end.  I'd like to think it will end positively, but at this point, I am just giving up and giving in.  Lord, tell me where to go.

I'm tired of trying.  Tired of drowning and hoping the person on shore throws the life preserver. There is no preserver coming because there is no one on shore.  I am learning to swim on my own now.

Thank you for giving me the strength to wake up each day, to take one more lap around the lake, and to keep positive.

Thank you for sending your Son to us so we can live each day with hope and gratefulness.  I surely do not understand your methods or why you allow bad and sad things to happen to us - but I will always keep going.  I know that's what you want for me.  To keep going until I reach the end prize.

This morning, I am giving up and giving in - just so you know.  I don't have any fight left in me.  I am flat-out and running on empty.

I tried.  I lost.  Help me grieve the loss I didn't want and begin to heal.

Not my will but yours.  Always and forever.  Let's do this Jesus...