And Why, Exactly, Do We Break So Easily?

2015.

I was so ready for it. Anticipating writing a very different blog post right about now. One in which I would share some good news I’d been given quite some time ago. But I can’t do that. And I’m not sure if or when I will be able to. Things changed and before I knew, before any of us knew, what was happening, we’re now  faced with something unexpected. Something unanticipated. And right now?

I feel broken.

I can’t tell you if that’s okay or not. I can’t tell you whether I have the right to these feelings when so many others are facing far worse scenarios. Unemployment. Bankruptcy. Failed marriages. Cancer. You name it, it’s out there, and you and I probably know someone in pretty dire straits. So I wipe away tears and tell myself it could be worse.

Oy.

Yeah. It could. It sure could. And dammit, I’ve been here before. I’ve faced down disappointment, dealt with rejection and somehow soldiered on. After a few glasses of wine and a good sleep, things never look so bad the next day.

But this time? This time I’m older. Wiser, maybe, or that’s just wishful thinking…but this time it feels different. This time I’m not so sure I can get back up and be the same. Keep calm and carry on. I don’t know if I have it in me to keep fighting, if we have to, for what’s right in this. But I don’t know if I can walk away either.

Why are we so easily broken?

What is it about our spirit that makes it so easily crushable? You know?

Friends are rallying, wanting to pick up sticks and bash down doors and tell the world what they think about this craziness…and me? Well…I’m tired. Because I have worked so long and so hard and so recklessly at times, truly believing that this is my calling. This is what I’m meant to be doing. I have the blog posts to prove it. And then this comes. This unexpected blow that sails through me, sends me crashing and somehow puts a lid on my party before it even started.

Wow, God. Seriously?

Easy isn’t it, to blame the Almighty when things just piss you off. Like He never saw it coming. Which makes it worse in a way, because how ’bout a warning? Or oh, I know, how ’bout you changed the course of that path and prevented it altogether? Yeah. How ’bout that.

I don’t know.

And I don’t know what I’m going to do next. Not right now. Not today. But I’m sitting here writing. Which tells me one thing.

I can’t not.

So I guess, whether things change here at all, whether this was just a hiccup and something better comes along or whether it doesn’t, I guess I’m not going to quit. Even though today it sounds like the better plan. The safer plan. But is it the best plan? Ha. Probably not. Maybe for some. Maybe if I sat you down and shared with you every single step I’ve taken on this journey to finding my place in this ridiculously hard world of publishing, you’d look me in the eye and call it what it is. Crazy.

I don’t want this to be your story. My dear friend looked at me this morning over Skype through mournful eyes and said those words. Softly. Because she knows I’m broken. And I could only nod. I don’t want it to be my story either. But it is. Right now, it is. And we don’t know why. And yes, it could be worse…so so so so so much worse. But I’m not going to deny that this hurts. You’ve got to own that, feel it and accept it in order to work through it. Which is why I’m writing this down. So I remember.

So, when things are good again, and they will be, I’ll remember that I am just as easily broken as I am bolstered. And there is only One who can truly gather up those shards and seamlessly put them back together again. That’s the truth I know. The truth I’m holding on to. Because at the end, when it’s all said and done, this is all that matters. How I lived it out.

How I faced the unexpected and stepped around it.

With Grace.

Jesus. Help. Come. Heal.

This. This heart’s cry?

This is how we do broken.