February 26, 2008

The Break Wall

The bitter wind cut into my face and made me feel cold all the way to my bones. It matched the cold hollow feeling in my gut. I was really here, at the same spot my husband had taken me on our honeymoon. The sound of my feet on the walkway seemed like the clanging of a gong and my tears felt as frozen within me as the water around me. I recognized this frozen feeling and its companion of deep loneliness as the same as the evening I had to make myself leave my husband's casket knowing I would never look on his face again this side of heaven. This was the 2nd long and loneliest walk on this journey of singleness.


I knew it was going to cut deep into my heart, yet it was my heart that was insisting this was a place I needed to visit. It was a place were I had felt like it was just my husband and me and God in the whole world. And I guess I hoped to feel that feeling again. "I'm here," I whispered and I waited. All I felt was shattered dreams and an overwhelming coldness that reminded me again that my beloved is gone. The tears within me melted and overflowed freezing instead on my cheeks.


As I gazed out over the frozen water, I was reminded of a poem I had heard at a funeral just the day before. It spoke of a great ship and how when it disappears over the horizon people speak of it as being gone, yet it is still there, huge and majestic on the sea, just out of our view. I know my husband lives on. I know of his relationship with Jesus and the promises of God's Word. I know he lives on. I see him in the children and his memories fill my mind. Yet pictures don't show reveal how intense his eyes were. How they could look deep into my soul and understand what words couldn't describe. Or how the sound of his voice could melt away irritation in a child or the worries within me. Or how his arms were like a suit of armour protecting me from the world's assaults. Only one who has lost someone so dear to them can understand the depth of emotion that is spoken in the words "I miss him."

And yet I know he lives. My beloved lives on just beyond my view. I was reminded of how spring seems so far away, and the children wonder it if will ever come. But I know it will. They try to say my Jesus is dead too. But I know He arose and I know He lives. I have heard His voice in my soul and have felt His angels lift me up. His forgiveness has cleansed me within were no man could know the secret sins there of. The Lord reminded me He did not leave me without hope.

"But I miss his arms around me," I sobbed.

"Hug your children for they miss his arms too. Let me use you to hug them."

"And I so miss talking to him and hearing his wisdom and humor,"I lamented as the sorrow overflowed like the creek after a spring rain.

"Talk to Me, my child, I love you the same and even more so."

I felt as hushed as Job by the words of God.

Talk to Me. Once again I had let my grief blind me from my Savior.
This relationship with the Lord is so different from the one with my husband, and I struggle sometimes yearning for the earthly ways I am used to. Forgetting to look to the One who created me and knows me even better than my beloved.

Talk to Me. As I stood up to head back to the land, to my children, to reality, I was reminded of what I was on. A break wall. Its job is to break the waves so the harbor and all its vessels were not pounded by the crashing power of the water. The Lord is my break wall. Without Him, I would be in despair, completely overwhelmed without hope.

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