For twelve years, I wrote somewhere - in a journal or a note on Facebook or here - about 9/11, on 9/11. This year I did not. Not for any reason other than I didn't. I spent the day at work, doing what I (try to) do. I had a falling apart layer in the day that was painful, but necessary for some "stuff" I am working through, but even that had nothing to do with not writing.
Yesterday, a friend handed me a children's book. "Read this," she said. September 12: We knew everything would be all right. "Your everything will be all right," she told me as she hugged me. The book was written and illustrated by first grade students in Missouri, and was first printed in July 2002. It's adorable, but the book itself is not the point.
Before that day thirteen years ago, I had seen God at work in many ways, in many places, and I had thanked Him. From time to time I asked Him for stuff. Before that day, I had apprehension that kept me from being completely whole, and I knew it, but it was (in my mind) no big deal, just shyness or something like it. Before that day, I had never learned to lean on God, to ask for Him to be my strength, for Him to hold me, for Him to guide me.
On that day, once my family was all home, safe and under one roof, sleeping in their own beds, the bottom fell out of my heart. I dreamt each night of police coming to the door in the middle of the night for various reasons, alarms sounding in the distance warning of some threat, lights flashing outside my window. The fear that enveloped me was so intense, so complete, I had difficulty functioning. I found myself staring at the sky, not having realized how accustomed to the flight patterns over my house I had become. Although the quiet was something I would normally have relished, the empty skies became a roaring silence in my ears. I cried and trembled every morning when I awoke, tearing myself from my pillow only because our youngest son slept in a crib and could not get out himself.
I can't tell you how long this went on. I do know that the day it began to change was laundry day, and a beautiful, sunny and warm one at that. I was on the phone with my friend, Aunt B, one of the few people I'd told of my pain, my sorrow, my fear. She told me she had been repeating constantly the words "Thy will be done." She encouraged me to pray - something that had truly not occurred to me. I went outside with my basket of clean clothes and screamed it at the sky. Every time I went outside, I said it - softly under my breath, in my head, screamed at the top of my lungs, silently in my heart - until I could bring myself to say it upon waking.
Fitful sleep, terrible dreams, time to rise, "Thy will be done," tears and fear. Repeat.
Until the morning I woke, once again with tears on my cheeks, and heard the voice of God. A song I knew well rang in my ears and I felt the presence of one who meant the words completely: Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come, follow me, and I will give you rest. (from Isaiah) For the first time since that fateful Tuesday, I felt comfort, peace, gratitude for the dawn of day. And the strength to move forward, to take each day, each step, each challenge as it came. The dreams stopped. The sun felt warm, the rain refreshed, the cries of the baby filled me with love for life and a desire to be.
I knew everything would be all right. Not perfect in my eyes, not what I might like or want or wish for, but right. I learned to seek with all my heart. A lesson I still struggle with, but that's another story for another time.
Jeremiah 29, especially v13 & 14.
No comments:
Post a Comment