The ugly cry...

"I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. I am fully convinced, my dear brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness. You know these things so well you can teach each other all about them."
Romans 15:13,14

Day 61: My little bit of happy today ~ my independant 2 year old needing extra mommy love. (Unfortunately though it is because she's getting sick.)

Dear Caleb,

It's been a long week for your mama. I've been sick physically, and emotionally spent as I have been grieving over another mama's recent loss; as well as reliving those first days after you left us. My emotions have been running full tilt these last fews days. Illness, hormones, exhaustion... grief.

Christ calls us to bear one another's burdens. This world is a little less lonely and scary when we have brothers and sisters in Christ sharing the weight of our world on their shoulders, being God with skin on for us. Too often there is nothing we can DO. We can only BE. And pray.

I rarely let myself fall apart any more. I don't have the time. I usually keep my grief and sorrow closely guarded. It took almost 4 years of marriage before your daddy figured out that when I disappear into the bathroom it's because I've gone to fall apart in private. Now that he knows he doesn't let me do it any more. He loves me too much.

Which is both wonderful and infuriating. Because sometimes I just need to fall apart and there's nothing anyone can do to help hold me together. So most of the time I hold my emotions at bay. The tears might trickle and my voice might crack, but I do everything in my power to hold myself together.

And then there are nights like tonight. Daddy is at work. The four biggest kids are each in their beds and Sarah is tucked into mine (and every night when she tucks herself in next to me I wonder what it would be like to have you tucked up in between us). I am up way longer than I had intended because of needing to eat and medicate myself before I can go to bed.

As I sat here eating a quick bite and giving myself a nebulizer treatment before crawling back into bed I was reading Stephanie Dyer's blog, and as I often do I left her page open to listen to her play list. She and I have a very similar taste in and relationship to music. It's how God reaches us, and how we reach Him when we are too broken to reach Him any other way.

And Angie Smith's song, I Will Carry You came on. This is a song I've heard countless times before, but usually have to cut off because it's just too emotional.

Tonight it was my undoing. I had to feel. I had to weep. And so I took my glasses off, and I held my arms up to my chest as if I were holding you there under my chin. And I rocked. And I fell apart. And I did the ugly cry. Twice.

I fight the ugly cry because... well, it's ugly! But it is so cleansing and sometimes we just need to feel the deep raw excruciating pain. It's part of the healing. It's part of growing. It's part of acknowledging and being real in the situation.

There were photographs I wanted to take
Things I wanted to show you
Sing sweet lullabies, wipe your teary eyes
Who could love you like this?
People say that I am brave but I’m not
Truth is I’m barely hanging on
But there’s a greater story
Written long before me
Because He loves you like this

"Long beyond the empty cradle and the coming years, I will carry you..."
~ Your heart broken mama