I wake to the sound of the roosters crowing, just as the sun’s rays begin to shed their distant glow in the sky beyond the horizon. Morning lurks just beyond the earth’s edge, brimming with light and life and the gift of a new day.
But that’s not what I see. I see black. Night still fills the room, leaving behind it’s barren, lonely void. Panic grips me. I try to breathe, but the air feels hollow too, bereft of the oxygen I crave. I breathe in short gasps against a throat that feels too tight and a chest that feels like it’s strangled by some invisible belt. A low whistle sounds as the air begins to fill my lungs, like air rushing through a vacuum. Tears flood my eyes for the pain, for the loss of what was and what never will be again, for the day that lies ahead for me, full of needs I can’t meet and a sadness that envelopes me and won’t relent.
My eyes can’t contain the tears. They run in droplets down my cheeks, erupting like a volcano of pain, even now, a year after they cut the bad cells out and took away a part of me. Tear drops fall on my collar bones. They flow like rivers down my chest that still burns like a raging fire. Tears that feel like molten lava roll across what once was and is no longer and scald nerves that still refuse to be silenced, to be quieted, calmed. Nerves that still cry out for what the cancer took from them.
The scars pinch and tingle and wave throughout my mind and body like flags that forever remind me of the fragility of human life, of pain and loss and all that is broken.
I am broken again.
I weep for the childhood I didn’t have, for the illness that snatched me from that childhood, from my adolescence too, from all the days I should have been learning how to grow, to make friends, to feel the wind rush through my hair and blow against my face as I ran through those childhood days.
I weep for the days I lay in bed and grieved for what was not to be, for the friends I wouldn’t make, for the pain and the loneliness that I bore instead, for the desperate prayers I prayed, for the illness that was mine, and forced me to grapple with life and death and months in bed and wheelchairs and hospital stays and bullies in the night. The one that taught me to tolerate blood tests and infusions and chemo while my peers were learning how to handle life and school and friendships.
I don’t know why it all haunts me now, so many years later. Was I just surviving then? Am I only now finally processing all the feelings and all that I lost?
I weep that the days of health in my life were so short. I had a whirlwind of wonderful, of babies and life and children growing that was breathtaking and beautiful. But here I am with children who need me still and I struggle to get out of the recliner. I don’t want to be here again, fighting pain and weakness and sadness when my kids need me to be so much more.
I am broken.
Inadequate.
The words reverberate in my head, and I am so disappointed in myself.
I reach for my robe and tie the belt high up under my shoulders, tight across my chest where my breasts used to be. The sky is lighter now as the sun rises. The pressure from the belt calms the nerves some. I open my Bible app and hit play. God’s word speaks to me as I dress and cry and long to feel like myself again.
I wonder how to do this. I wonder how to face another day with that volcano of pain that’s changed me and is still hurting me. I wonder how to bear the burning another day or how to tolerate the sadness and the clenching in my throat that no one can see, that only I must feel. I wonder how to help my children watch their mother suffer still and grieve a lifetime of pain.
I cry because I am so inadequate to do this work.
Then, right there at my vanity, with tears running down my cheeks, I see it. I see that the realization of my inadequacy may be the moment when God’s power flows through me in ways it never could have when I was feeling strong, capable.
It comes to me while the scripture plays.
It’s always in the brokenness that God does His greatest works.
It was during the pain of my childhood that God made Himself so real to me. It was then that He held me.
It was in the midst of the fires of brokenness and illness that the most valuable relationship in my life was forged – my relationship with God. It was then that I grew to know God and recognize His gentle voice inside me. It was in the midst of those darkest hours when God smiled upon me and shared His joy with me.
It was when I was so ill and the doctors at Children’s Hospital had nothing else they could offer me that God healed me. I was too broken for human hands, but I wasn’t too broken for God.
It was when Mark was laid off and we lost our home that God provided a way for us to build a new and bigger one.
It was through brokenness and loss that God gave us two of the most beautiful blessings of our lives – our daughters from China who needed a family as much as we needed them.
It’s when we come to the end of ourselves that God does the miraculous in our lives and in the lives of those we love.
It was when we had broken and lost faith in our ability to parent that God brought healing to us and to Eliza and flooded our hearts with a deep love for our new daughter.
This brokenness, this pain, this pervasive feeling of hopelessness is just the beginning of another miracle in our lives. It only means God is moving, ready to rescue the weak and broken-hearted, ready to rescue me, us.
This brokenness isn’t about me.
It’s about a God who’s greatest work is done through our weakness.
It’s about a God who allows the brokenness into our lives because it’s then and only then that we can really partake in His work here in this broken world.
It’s about a God who offered salvation to the world through the most broken moment in the life of His precious son, Jesus.
God’s greatest work was done when Christ allowed Himself to be broken on the cross for us.
There is a place for brokenness, for inadequacy. It’s the place where God finds us most willing to cling to Him and trust Him to do the miraculous in our lives.
A group of authors, broken in pouring out our lives to love the worlds most vulnerable, perhaps the most broken, and who have come through the pain to a place of peace, have gathered together to share our hearts and words of encouragement to those of you who may have come home with your newly adopted child filled with dreams of healing and joy, but have found enormously hard work instead. We share our hearts, real and raw, in an effort to provide hope to those of you who may be searching for hope amidst the hard.
Our book will be coming out soon under the pen name, Katherine Piper. At the end of each of our stories, there will be a link to our blogs where you can comment and interact with us if you wish.
All profits will go to support families in bringing home their children.
There are blessings we cannot always know in the brokenness, but we hope to offer encouragement to the broken hearted through this book, and a glimpse of God’s strength made perfect through our weakness.
Blessings All!
I appreciate your words so much and see how you walk this painful journey with an inner strength and grace. I see Jesus in you. Praying for God’s plan in your life. He who has begun a good work is faithful and just to complete it. His promise to you.
Thank you, sweet friend. ❤️
Your transparency is a blessing to me. You shine through the pain.
Thank you, Carla, for blessing me with your words. I pray that God will use me right where I am. Thank you for taking the time to comment. You’ve encouraged me.
Blessings.
Diane