"Some deep and tender part of us gets trapped there in those times and places where we have had a taste of the life we long for." -from "To Be Told"
Have you ever stood at the edge of your life with a feeling that it could go either way?
There are days that I am encouraged beyond my own strength, completely convinced that God has a marvelous plan for my life and that my purpose is made manifest through my pain. In other words, God will use my life to help others and good will come again.
Then there are days, too many to count… that play themselves out in an untimely, inconvenient succession. Untimely? Shawn died too young and I am too young to live without him. Inconvenient? There is nothing I find more exhausting and heavy than single parenting. Two will always be better than one.
These are the days that tell me the pain is too much, the sacrifice too great, the loss too significant to overcome. Where is the meaning? What is the purpose? How many more nights can I tuck a little girl into bed as she cries real alligator-size-tears for her daddy?
It is beyond easy to get trapped in the “would have beens.” It is effortless really. Because the nature of the human heart is to want what we cannot have. And the straightforward truth is that if we have experienced a life of love we want it back.
I go back to my word for the year…TRUST.
I cannot say this will ever be better. I can only trust that at some point I will no longer be teetering on the edge of life–trapped. I persevere for what my mind can't know, my eyes can't see and my heart can't feel. I continue on towards the day when I stand certain on that same edge of life–unbound.
