The Figments of Suffering

 

I remember waking up in the middle of the night and noticing that John wasn’t in bed with me. I went looking for him and found him in the kitchen. I went to hug him but he brushed me off and stepped away. I asked him to come to bed with me but he shook his head and said he didn’t want to be with me anymore.

When I asked why, he spent several minutes explaining all the ways that I had failed at showing him love. I was selfish, and self-centered. I was dramatic and overbearing. I didn’t give space for him to be who he wanted. He did not love me anymore because I did not love him enough. 

I stared at him and begged him to give me another chance, just one more chance. I had never realized how horrible of a wife I’d been, but I could change. But he refused to give me another chance. He said he’d found someone else, someone who loved him well, and he had decided to love her instead. 

And then I woke up. 

Nightmares have been plaguing me lately. At first they were somewhat infrequent and they didn’t hit so close to home. But, in the last month, I have experienced them almost every night, and they’ve gotten perpetually worse. 

I'm caught in a vicious cycle. I have nightmares all night long. I wake up exhausted and spend the day struggling to accomplish everything that I need to get done. But then I find myself struggling to fall asleep because I'm subconsciously afraid of having more nightmares. I finally fall asleep only to start the cycle all over again.

I'm exhausted. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. And the more I try to figure out how to stop the nightmares or sleep better the more overwhelmed I get by the entire situation. *face palm*

It makes me feel like a little kid. Why am I so bothered by these silly dreams? They aren't reality, I know that. I can't actually be hurt by nightmares. 

long ago, I used to wake up from nightmares that John had died and I would reach across and place my hand on his beating heart. I used to wake him up after every terrible nightmare and he would pray me back to sleep. And he would promise that he would try his very best to never leave me...his very best.

I guess, when you think about it, my life is the perfect example of the fact that nightmares sometimes become reality...

Maybe that truth exists constantly in my subconscious and it is the real fear that keeps me up at night?

Maybe I'm just overly emotional and exhausted in this season?

Maybe the body does, in fact, keep the score, and it is remembering all the moments I was triggered and I mentally forced myself to let it go so that I didn't have a panic attack.

Maybe I'm just not safe anymore and no amount of convincing myself otherwise will work?

Whatever reasons or explanations that exist for these nightmares, I can't seem to find the solution...

So, I am simply sitting in this very hard season. 

I am accepting it for all it hard parts.

I am weeping for the pain that lives within me.

I am gently seeking all of the answers.

I am aching for all the ways I used to be different.

I never thought that being a widow...being alone...being a single mother...would be so incredibly hard. 

But here it is...being so incredibly hard. And here I am...just sitting in the hardness. Because I find that, for this time, I am just too tired to do anything else.

I've accepted that this is the season I am in. A season of being broken and broken again until I am not sure what could possibly remain of who I once was. 

And so I sit in the ashes, much like Job. And I sing to myself to truths that still exist even in this place.

When I look at the legacy I am creating as a griever, let it never be said that I sat in any hope other than the everlasting love of the one true God. Because, time and time again, everything else was stripped away. And one thing has always remained...the gospel of Jesus Christ that breaths within the heartbeat of my suffering. And for that, I find myself, even now, endlessly thankful. 

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

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When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

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If my heart could tell a story
If my life would sing a song
If I have a testimony
If I have anything at all

No one ever cared for me like Jesus
His faithful hand has held me all this way
And when I'm old and grey
And all my days are numbered on the earth
Let it be known in you alone
My joy was found