Cleaning Up the Mess

I am sitting on my couch, watching colorful leaves blow in the wind outside my window.  Judah is fussy, fighting sleep.  I've wrapped him up in a blanket and he is laying on my chest, sleep will come.  I am jealous of this kind of comfort, but am learning how much comfort I find in the holding.

For the past few years, I have been asked a question.  Persistently.  It never fails that I tell a story and they ask the question quickly after.  They assume the answer is no.  Based on physical characteristics and circumstances of the story.  A lot of times they are right.

But I have a few stories, which confuse them.  They ask their question -- their go-to, fix-all question.  And I debunk their beliefs by telling them about that one time... that one time that led to this time, that one time I told no one about that led to this hurt and now here I am with Judah on my chest.  And I wonder if their question means that much anymore.

Five weeks.  Judah is five weeks old.  He smiled today -- aunt Liv caught a picture of it, sent it to me during my work meeting.  After the week I've had, I needed this.  I needed class to be cancelled today.  I needed team meeting this morning -- to rejuvenate my passion for my job.  I needed to be off work at 1 so I could eat lunch with Olivia and snuggle J and catch the big man before he left for work.

We are a family.

And there is a quiet, desperate section of my heart, which thinks maybe we always will be.  Me, J, aunt Liv, the big man... The brother is moving to Kentucky on Sunday.  He's never met us before.  But he's staying with the big man the way Liv stays with me.

You'd think after the night I had earlier this week, my heart would be ripped to shreds.  I admit, I felt trampled.  I feel as if I have been pulled in four different directions and I feel as though everything is falling apart and I feel as though I've been as strong as I know how to be, for as long as possible.

But I prayed certain prayers... specifically for resolution, for protection.  I remember whispering, so quietly only the spirit could hear, asking God to not let it hurt so much.  It was this kind of hurt, which got me here.

I relived every one of those moments this week.  Every rejection, every unkind word, every act of abuse, every deferred hope.  I wonder why it happens, why it has to happen again.  I question myself, turning inward and examining myself.  Perhaps this is all my fault.

But the certain prayers I prayed, after I finally thought to pray them, worked.

I pushed the hurt down.  Deep, deep down so I didn't feel it anymore.  I let the tears fall and I swallowed -- like you do when your throat is sore, out of curiosity.  Just to see if it still hurts.  I swallowed and swallowed and swallowed.  Laid down to sleep, determined on waking, I'd walk away from it.  I don't have time for hurt.  There is not space in my life for it.

Life doesn't make sense.  This situation doesn't make sense.  The hurt, the cowardice, the irony, the sadness.  One day I will tell this story and wonder how I survived it.  The thought of being so far away from it that it no longer hurts is what propels me forward.  Press forward.  Hard and fast.  Leave this all behind.

It has been a long time -- if ever, I told her -- since I questioned God.  "Why?" is not a question I ask out of doubt and bitterness.  I ask it every day, wondering what is next and what the purpose is behind it.  So often, He answers me.  So often, the answer to "why" is evident, even if obscured.

This time, I asked "why?" and was met with echoing silence.  Every time I asked and was not answered, the hurt dug deeper.  I refuse to ask why "bad things happen to good people", because I no longer necessarily believe I am a good person.  I also know we hardly ever understand pain in the thick of it.  Just... usually I do.

And this time I don't.

Until today.

I say this lightly, knowing tomorrow when it hurts again I will forget this epiphany.  Knowing that if I end up being wrong... the pain will happen all over again and I will question my ear.  Even though I used to hear so clearly.

I heard clearly just then, though.  In the confident and assured way I used to.

How many times have I told you my sister's story?  The story of Kat and David?  Today I remembered a very, very vital part of their story.  And while I do not want to wait ten years for my love, hope I am not in my mid-thirties before a boy walks out of the bathroom and grabs me and kisses me and tells me he loves me, I remembered the important part of the story.

The indignant, very insistent conversation with a dear friend of mine  today was the trigger.  It happened mid-step, mid-sentence, right as I was about to laugh and dismiss it all.  She'd asked the question and I'd thought it was ridiculous again.  But all at once and all very slowly, it trickled down the back of my neck like the first few moments of a shower.

And I don't really know what to do with it.  Because it requires the kind of hope I have been boycotting.  The kind of hope, which continues to be deferred -- which continues to break me and break me again.  I don't know what to do with this realization, because there's no way I just saw so far ahead.  Surely I won't get what I want...

But I used to believe in the power of prayer.  I used to believe in this voice enough I'd follow it to the ends of the earth.  Others believed in my ability to hear it.  And whatever it was I saw and heard was enough to propel me forward into whatever God's plan was... whether it was what I had anticipated or not.  Perhaps this is what hearing God is about.

Movement.

The kind of movement, which gets us to where we need to be whether we meant to go there or not.  The kind of shaking loose and bravery good stories are made of.

And He said, in His quiet, matter-of-fact way, "Anna, that sure did take you a while.  I'm glad we're on the same page again.  You remember how.  I'm still listening.  Tell me... tell me what it is you're asking for."

It is the important part of the story.  The part of the story, which sets my sister and her husband apart.

I am not so deceived.  My story will not look like theirs.  My story already does not look like theirs.  But... David looks likes Jesus.

That's what I remembered.