My view today was my childhood bedroom wall.
I spent several hours attempting to sleep off the fatigue. And now I’m writing this with the last bit of eye strength I have before the pain makes reading impossible.
As the anxiety moves back to a manageable state, the illness underneath it keeps showing up in ways I don’t yet understand.
Mold toxicity, inflammation, chronic fatigue — it’s all a big murky blur that I’m still sorting through.
It’s a constant battle to wrap my mind around each new possible diagnosis and each new treatment plan. With each one I get closer and closer to the solution–but living inside a body where eating lunch is an accomplishment can make a soul feel pretty weak.
Today I just needed to write and to cry.
Maybe someone else out there struggling with a chronic illness needs a good cry too.
I can’t gather up the emotional strength to open a bible, so I’m clinging to the words I remember. Clinging to the idea that the “faith of a mustard seed” is enough.
Circle of Grace by Jan Richardson is all I can read without weeping. Her blessings and poems have been like a soothing balm for this weak soul.
Right now reading those poems and listening to songs like Serial Doubter by Penny & Sparrow are my form of worship. Those are the few words that speak to this wounded soul.
I’m sorry for the bitterness. I’m sorry for the eye rolling and the anger. I’m sorry if your joy and your faith upset me.
Angry is just sad’s bodyguard, you know.
I desperately miss my Savior. I desperately miss raw, powerful prayer. I miss the mystery and the wonder of the Holy Spirit.
But all I can say is that when I am balling in the shower at 5pm because it’s the first and only thing I’ve been strong enough to do today, the last thing I want to hear is a K-Love song.
When the panic is surging through my body and I’m digging my nails into my own skin to ground me in reality, the last thing I want to hear is, “Well, let’s just pray.”
My anger isn’t fair to you. But it comes from a soul that’s living in the Saturday before resurrection. That’s seeing the world through the eyes of a grieving disciple.
Every poem and blessing within Circle of Grace has been healing for me. But as I find myself crying in my bedroom, watching another day pass by with very, very little to show for it, this particular poem caught my attention and would not let go.
____
Blessing For a Broken Vessel
(for Holy Saturday)
Do not despair,
You hold the memory
of what it was
to be whole.
It lives deep
in your bones.
It abides
in your heart
that has been torn
and mended
a hundred times.
It persists
in your lungs
that know the mystery
of what it means
to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.
I am not asking you
to give up your grip
on the shards you clasp
so close to you
but to wonder
what it would be like
for those jagged edges
to meet each other
in some new pattern
that you never imagined,
that you never dared
to dream.
____
(Be sure to visit Jan Richardson at her Facebook page and read more of her fabulous work.)
Are there any other good writer and poets who capture this season? Words have always been my main source of strength and healing–I could use some more good ones now.
___
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