Catching my breath

Its hard to know where to go from here.  With all the heartbreak in Connecticut, and then several heart wrenching situations close to my family and friends, I find myself bent in a constant ache of grief and hurt for those around me.  A constant awareness of the brokenness of here and the fragility of this life has been walking with me.  The tears fall and the heart squeezes and after praying for the broken hearts and all the aches and the what-nows, its like I don't know what to do.

And then, just this afternoon, I remembered.

When I experienced my own heartache, I remember hoping for everyone else to just go home and love their babies.  To go and snuggle longer and drink deeper and be there with them.  I remember hugging one of my dear nurses before she left and telling her to go love and snuggle on some healthy newborns today.  I wanted the world to do what I couldn't.  I remember aching to tell the world, please, please know what you've got- don't miss a moment.

I was ever so very grateful for prayer and love, but what I wanted most was for anyone who heard my story to drink more deeply of their own- to love harder, longer, wider. To see The Author in everything and to enjoy what He had written for them.

So, once again my Jubilee girl has taught me how to do life.  (Thank you, precious Jubi-girl.  Jesus is changing me through you, and sweet girl, because of you I will never, ever be the same.)

I know what to do now- how to catch my breath and breathe when I'm hurting so hard for those around me.

I'm going to breathe deeper.

I'm going to give myself permission to grieve and find joy at the same time because that's what I wanted when my heart was shattered to pieces.  I was so grateful for those who wept with me, but I didn't want them missing out on their own opportunities to find joy. I wanted them to breathe deep.

Everyone has their own story, and this isn't an attempt to try to compare my own story with the heart-wrenching stories surrounding me- to scribble any of my notes onto anyone else's pages.  But when my grief for others is so strong and I am desperate for a way to keep walking, I find that I can work off of what I know.  And what I know is that there was a little girl who taught me a whole lot about hurt and healing and finding joy when I couldn't see for all the tears.

The next step?  The next step is allowing grief and joy to share my heart.

On a practical level, it means I'm going to love harder and longer and wider.

The loving harder looks like a lot of different things.  First, it looks like the rescue.  Jesus is our Rescuer, and His Spirit is in us that we might share the blessing of His rescue with others.  Loving harder looks like the rescue.  It looks like a handwritten letter, a warm meal, a prayer from a hundred miles away.  It means doing. He has put His children on a rescue mission, and I'm ready to be His hands and feet, because I've seen those hands and feet before, and they were life where there was death.  They were breath when I couldn't breathe.  They were God when He was hard to find.  Loving harder means reaching out where we can.

The loving longer looks like drinking it all in.  Keeping it in perspective.  Being grateful for those piles of laundry because it means there's a pile of people to wear them.  It means inhaling the scent of his little forehead because by God's grace, today I have a little forehead to smell.  It means playing trains instead of doing the dishes or getting online because the blessing is waiting there on the floor in a pile of plastic train tracks and I don't want to miss it.  It means coming to the door with a smile and letting dinner get cold because he's been working hard all day, and I want him to know I love him.  It means making every single moment count.

The loving wider looks like remembering the groans of the wounded and not getting lost in my own little world. It means looking beyond my own story and remembering the stories of others. It means that on Christmas day, my family will stop in the midst of our celebration to hold hands, quiet our hearts, and remember the precious families that are hurting that day.  It means rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep. While we rejoice at the gift of our Rescuer born on that day and drink deep of our blessings, we will also take the time to be still and weep for the broken hearts. Loving wider means standing in the gap and asking that He come quickly to heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3).


I'm breathing deeper.  And when I find myself paralyzed with sorrow for the families in Connecticut and aching with grief for the dear families close to my own, I'm going to close my eyes, catch my breath, and take the next step.

I'm loving longer, harder, and wider.

Will you join me?