First of all I apologize for the unbelievable length's of the posts. I know that everyone is to busy to read even a quarter of what I wrote but in my defense..it was just a way to purge. I was confronted with so many emotions and on days when I was by myself that’s when the little devils creeped up on me and danced on my heart....not a good feeling. So anyway....sorry :)
Summation on trip: It was mountain top one day and ocean floor the next. Crazy...but it definitely did something to me. There were 2 days where...well...let’s just say lonely thoughts were roaming in the mind. Again, begging God to take me....but again no answer....no nothing. Just me hearing myself weep like I was looking and listening in from the other room...really strange. There were several days of spending time with friends and family that were PRICELESS!! At around the 3 1/2 week mark I began to feel very exhausted...in my heart. I didn’t know how much more battering I could take. Well, at the little beach town just outside of Cape Town where Nancy and I had talked about retiring at (she making pizza and me making beer of course) I found out that the “squeezing” wasn’t over. The first day I took a long walk on the beach. It’s off season and I was the only person for as far as I could see in both directions....here it comes...the deep wave of isolation and loneliness. The questions, and then of course the anger....I am so totally text book...God must just shake His head....however I will say that I will forever have empathy for people who go through this kind of specialized torture. In what seemed like an eternity I got through it and walked back to the house.... and then the day ended up really nice as Kyle and I went to a little fisherman’s bar and watched a Rugby game (still not sure of the rules but that is a man’s game!!). Next day...the day before I was to fly back to Nashville....was a nice quiet day as Rolf had to do some work and I tried to help Lizzie with getting ready to leave to go back to Cape Town (sorry Liz!!). No pain, no weirdness...just a nice day.
What had really happened on the beach occurred to me a couple of days ago......I was saying goodbye. Not just to the dream we once had....a beautiful crazy exotic dream of living on the west coast of Africa....but to the “two shall become as one”. That is no more...and it was like I was saying good bye to Nance...which I didn’t get to do on June 28th 2010. It hurts to write it....stabs....but I know it’s true. And I have come home a little tougher, a little more resolved. Acceptance is slowly dripping in like a leaky faucet.
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. C.S. Lewis
So now..... I shall say good bye to what was...... and hello to what shall be.
Thank you to all of you for your prayers and financial support. You completely amaze me!!
I appreciate your honesty. I told my son tonight, who is suffering the loss of love, that to get rid of the pain you must talk it out, cry it out, or write it out. Sometimes it takes all three. I see healing within you Mike. I hear healing within. You WILL smile again. You WILL love again. He makes ALL things beautiful in His time.
ReplyDeleteTears, brother. Feeling for you in that exhausted, newborn state. Praying that the God of comfort will, as Eugene Peterson puts it, 'come alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too."
ReplyDeleteTears . . .
ReplyDeletefinally got a chance to read this and wanted you to know that i'm still praying. thank you for being transparent and vulnerable throughout your journey. it really is an honor to, in some small way, be a part of it. love you, mikey d! so very much! and, i'm proud to call you my brother and friend! (steph waldrop)
ReplyDelete