Friday, October 17, 2014

Sometimes... it all falls apart

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged.  I’ve had a lot to say but haven’t felt like I had the freedom to be honest with myself, supporters, co-workers or the on-looking world in general.

For reasons that are beyond me, I have gotten the impression over the years that support raising missionaries are supposed to share only the “good” stuff.  You know all the stuff that is uplifting, inspiring and leaves the reader/supporter feeling encouraged.  So when things fall apart, what am I supposed to say?  I haven’t had a clue other than what I know to be the truth. Since the truth rips my heart out just thinking about it – I haven’t attempted to make it sound “pretty.” I haven't honestly felt strong enough to even try. Thus, I’ve gone silent on here.

Truth is, I’ve been going through a lot of raw, uncontrolled, rip your heart out, take your breath away, can’t sleep at night, don’t feel like eating, words can’t express grief.

I’ve gone from complete and total shock to numb to angry to blaming the world.  And I’ve cycled through that and bounced around those phases for months now.

I wish I could say that everything is fine, I feel no other emotion than the joy of the lord, I’ve forgiven everyone involved, I see all the why’s to why all this happened, I’ve learned major life lessons and am now all the wiser.  But truth is – most days I am trying to just not cry uncontrollably when I go through my daily routine and EVERYTHING reminds me of my children – breakfast cereal, doing the dishes, toothpaste, ESPN, my favorite chips, laundry, bedtime, any Mom with her children on the street, mopping my house, driving by their soccer fields, etc.  Some days, I struggle to get out of bed in the morning or walk out of my house at all.

So what happened?  Good question.  Details are messy and in my mind kind of complicated.

Bottom line… 84 days ago, I lost my 10 boys.  I’m not their caregiver anymore. I was told to move out of the orphanage.  They now live in other dorms with other people.

Why? How? When?  Yeah all of that doesn’t really matter.  Sure my head wrestles with all of those messy details to try to make sense out of everything.  But I don’t think the heart dwells or cares too much about such details.  All mine knows these days is loss.  Deep loss.  As many of you gathered, I loved and still love each of those boys as if they were my own.  I have to remind myself that they aren’t dead – or that it’s like when a kid moves on to go to college.  I don’t get to tuck Victor, Kevin, Gustavo, Cesareo, JD, Israel, Jose Antonio, Angel, Arturo or Willy into their beds at night.  I don’t get to tell them multiple times a day that I think they are awesome, smart, handsome, worth something and valuable to me and image bearers of the God Almighty who is obsessed with each of them more than they could ever imagine. 

So there you have it –  I’m sad, confused, struggling and trying to put one foot in front of the other in a direction of something healthy and God honoring.  In fact, this post comes from the back patio of a residential Christian counseling center that I’m calling home this month.

Bible says that each of our days were ordained by God before any of them came to be – seems like it was ordained long ago for me to attend the “classroom of grief and loss.”  If a classroom can then give a pass or fail grade (good thing for us that grades end when you graduate college right?) – I really hope that I’d “pass” this one.  I tend to think that passing something like this means that when all is said and done – I have passed if I treasure God above all else.

I covet your prayers for healing, wisdom and guidance for myself and prayers for my beautiful boys as they each have their own list of ongoing emotional, spiritual and physical needs. 

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