even my life

The pain is taking me under again.  I'm finding myself wondering how I'll make it through this week and do anything productive.  I'm feeling tempted to just quit my jobs and hunker down and somehow survive.  I need time to cry & breathe, to gather the shattered pieces of my heart together and somehow be strong for him.

***

I'm not strong.  My bravado was the bravado of someone who'd never really suffered.  All those hard things I thought I'd gone through?  Not really hard.  And now I find myself faced with a reality that thousands of other spouses face all the time and I don't have any idea how to make it through.

He's everything to me, and yet he's ultimately not mine.  In not very long I have to somehow let him go and still manage to survive.  Tonight I don't know how to do that.  I don't know how to paste on the smile, say "see you later," and carry on with my life.  I don't know how I will get up, go to work, or even how I'll go grocery shopping.  I just know that everything hurts right now.  Right now my heart is broken in a way it's never been broken before.  I know this makes me the weakest, the lamest.  He's not dying.  He'll be back.  He loves me desperately.

***

This is the trial that will prove what I'm made of.  If I allow it to do its work, if I face the pain, if I face it head on, I believe that God will make me new.  Up to this point in my life, I've always had my own strength to rely on.  I've always been able to cope, always been able to survive.  I've had "tough" things happen, but they were never like this.  Now the reality is exposed.  I don't have it in me to face this.  I just don't.  People tell me I'm strong, and they're so wrong.  I'm not strong at all.

I'm completely and utterly broken.  At this point, I don't have any idea how I'll survive.  Lord, have mercy, I don't have it in me.

Lord, have mercy.

***

When I pray, I'm no longer praying for the pain to go away.  It may be sick, but I need this pain like I've maybe never needed anything before.  As hard as it is, as much as I can't bear it, I have for maybe the first time in my life truly lost myself.  I want to follow Christ wholly, and up til now I've not ever been able to jump fully into his arms & let him carry me.  I've always walked alongside him as a stubborn child refusing to admit that I can't do it.

And now I can't do it.  There's no part of me that's able to say goodbye to the man who completes me.  There's no part of me that's able to face that pain without breaking down entirely.  God, have mercy, I need You.  Break me down further if that's what is necessary for Your will to prevail.  Even now I feel my rugged persistence coming back, as the tears dry up, I am tempted to think I can maybe do this on my own.

Remind me to come to You for everything.

Don't let me fall, Father.  Take these things I have always believed about You and make them real in my life.  I know it won't be easy, but I want to follow You more than anything else in this world.

Ultimately, more than my relationship with Justin, more than my mental sanity, more than anything in this world, I want You.  Teach me to despise even my own life.

Even my life.