You know that feeling of “I literally cannot get out of bed. I cannot face another human this hour. And if I could disappear I would do so, and never come back.”? That was me, on Christmas Day. A brief night of interrupted sleep left me exhausted midway through the day, and I knew that I needed an hours rest if I was going to make it to bedtime without any emotional fractures. I woke tho, and couldn’t sleep and couldn’t get up. I wanted to be absent from my spirit and present with the Lord. I had a broken heart and no words.

What else was new? This was the story of my life. My deepest pain was hardly ever known by anyone. Tho at one point when I was young, I tried to convince myself it was virtue, much of my naivety had fallen away by this point, leaving me very aware that I had critical areas that growth needed to take place and yet at a complete loss of anything needed to facilitate that growth. If and when I lost my mental energy it was only the power of God that could raise me from that place.

My husband tried to tell me that according to statistics, the life situations and circumstances that we had walked thru in the first ten years of our marriage, this being the eleventh year, were more than most people experienced in a life time. These situations and circumstances referenced were anything but divine and glorious. They had cut our hearts opened, left us bleeding, and inflicted wounds that at times we doubted would ever heal. They had stretched us, molded us, broken us and shaped us, slowly tearing away anything that the world had to offer. Money, relationships, belongings, family…all of it. There was God, and God alone. Did we want Him or not?

He was free for our taking – reciprocating that hand of relationship He had extended to us – or we could continue “doing the best we know how” which is one of the most damning lies of the enemy that’ll fast track you to hell without a blink or a thought.