My Lost Month

A month. It’s a long time. I know, because I’ve lost one.

Here’s the answer to a question I ask later: Learning to love.

My eyes saw her from afar. A dear friend. I saw the shakiness, her fragility. The ‘just get through this moment’ spirit she unknowingly exuded. I recognized this as it was where I was a mere week prior. My physical, mental, and emotional life had become a shadow. They weren’t gone, only dwindling. My mind couldn’t discern what I had to do next… how do I become stronger?

I was surrounded by my children, my church and my friends. I made it day by day. Practiced my driving skills again- yup, I can trust myself to drive. I can grocery shop. Doing small things helped to reconnect my brain waves to the words in my head. Staying up for hours trying to explain to myself what happened.
I knew the physical was connected to the spiritual, but I couldn’t make it ‘make sense’ in any way other than by it being two separate entities rather than the overlay I had known it to be.

Hospital. ICU. Ventilation. Isolation. Reality check, how did I get here? Why am I so confused?

The answer was that life took a left turn. Turning left isn’t always a bad thing, sometimes it’s just a new direction. The unexpected happened. Life is now different. I cannot change it, so I won’t dwell in the land of fantasy. I choose to live in today with the hope of a good outcome ahead.

My main reason for writing isn’t a lost month. Although that is pretty significant. My heart has been moved by expectations. I was surrounded in love, encouragement and prayer. I never really felt alone. Which I must say is pretty awesome. But in the midst of all that comfort came being blind-sided. That was eye-opening. That came with expectations.

I ran into fear, not my own, although I do battle that enemy with a mighty spiritual sword. I bumped into other people’s fear, and it was as if I had hit a relational wall. My fragile emotional stamina emptied itself into a muddy mess, and I grieved even more. The loss of connection. The changes that hovered in the distance that it created between myself and the people I loved. You cannot know what others have focused on nor what their hearts have absorbed. And the unknown can be a scary place.

How do you battle a fear that is not your own? I’m not sure that you can. You can accept that that’s where they are at the moment. You can love them from where you are.

So here I was today, in a whole different setting. I looked up and there she was teetering herself into a seat at a funeral. In her essence, I recognized my own recent state of weakness. Yet this week I was a bit stronger. A little further on in this recovery journey. I knew this because my vision had cleared enough that I could see her. Her sphere was so limited she could not see me from a few feet away. Her family had taken a left turn just as mine had. Did she, in her weak state, bump into someone else’s fear?

Oh, how my heart desired to connect with her. To show her love in the tangible expression of simply sitting and listening. Sometimes the journey through pain morphs into being able to comfort someone who is just a step behind you in their season of trauma. And we did connect more deeply than before.

So, what’s the question that I already answered? Here it is: ‘What is the purpose of life?’

 It is said that time heals all wounds, I counter that with a caveat: time can heal all wounds when you add forgiveness. And learning to love means trusting that other’s hearts are still good even when they respond in fear.

Be encouraged. Strength grows bit by bit. And the comfort you received can be a blanket to others.

Blessings,

~Debbie G  (2021)

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which accomplishes in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we experienced. -2 Corinthians 1:6

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. -Ephesians 4:32

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. -1 John 4:8

#ComfortTheHurting #ForgivenessHeals #LearnToLove #MyLostMonth