COURAGE, BRAVEHEART

These days, my heart is so so tender. It hurts more often than it doesn’t. Grief. Loss. Disappointment. Worry. Heartbreak. Confusion. More loss. Shame. Anger. Fear. Anxiety. Broken relationships. Trauma. It’d be enough if it was just one of these things but all of them compounded upon one another is sometimes too hard to bear. It’s exhausting.

I want joy. I want peace. I want comfort and laughter and hope and dancing. And yet sometimes it feels so out of reach. I’m emotionally and mentally overwhelmed and I need the Lord’s armor to protect my head and my chest right now because my mind and heart are so tattered and bruised.

Can anyone else relate to this?

Lord, in your word, in Psalms 30 you say,

  “…weeping lasts through the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

And in Ecclesiastes you say,

“…there is a time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance…”

The weeping and grieving and crying have been years, Lord. So where is the joy, Abba? Where is the time for laughing and dancing? How long must the hard and dark times go on before there is joy and laughter, dancing, hope and please God, peace?

Nine days ago, my nanny who has been a part of our family since I was two years old, Mary (or “Mayo” as those closest to her called her) passed away from cancer. She had been battling it for the past 6 years and she was ready for her fight to be done. The last text she sent me was “I’m tired of all this.”

Cancer consuming and taking yet another person in my life is taking on two different forms in me: 1) in some ways it is making me feel numb to it 2) it has created a breeding ground for fear to draw up the worst-case scenarios, causing me to expectantly wait for that next call that someone else I hold dear has been its next victim. I’m devastated by this loss and finding that I am less hopeful each time. And I hate that.

Mary lived with us and was our nanny during eight of the most formative years of my life. She was like a second mom to me and my siblings. My mom had four young children under the age of five and needed an extra set of hands to help while my dad was away playing ball. Mary was those hands.

She brought SO much goodness and warmth and stability and imagination and creativity and laughter and love to our lives. She hands down gave the BEST back scratches and wouldn’t leave until we were fast asleep. She would encourage us to use our imaginations, dressing us up and helping us put on the most elaborate plays – even encouraging us to write our own!! This is where I believe my love of storytelling first stemmed from. If we fell and needed to go to the hospital, Mary would rush us right there. She taught me the art of writing a good old-fashioned letter, which I still do to this day. And when she left us, we kept correspondence with each other as often as we were able. Mary would sit for hours, braiding our hair into the cutest little braid crowns you ever did see. These days, I still rock a braid, but never could figure out how to do a crown on myself. Mary taught me the art of loving a good book, the appreciation of reading and getting lost in stories. She taught me how to crochet. When we missed our parents and would be bawling our eyes out, Mary would hold us and rock us to sleep. 

I love Mary, deeply. Always have. Always will. I miss Mary desperately, and I am so thankful for the lessons she taught me, the wisdom and love so always so freely gave, and for all the many little ways she impacted the whole of my life. She was woven into the very fabric of my being since the beginning and this loss is profound. I’m heartbroken. I don’t know how to be a Braveheart today. Grief is sometimes too great. I hate cancer SO MUCH. 66 is too young. Abba, come quick and bring your comfort and peace. We need it. We need you. I need it. I need you.