What a difference two years can make. In an instant, a moment, just another random day, life took a sharp turn and would never be the same.
Walking through the nightmare was like walking through a minefield. It seemed every day there was another explosion creating more damage and debris. Honestly wasn’t quite sure how I’d survive.
You just can’t quit life. And it wasn’t life I wanted to quit. I just wanted to be absent from everything in it for as long as it took to cope with my new reality.
But life isn’t so kind. There isn’t a pause button that you can push and stop your world to breathe, catch-up, and just figure out how to survive. Sometimes you need a few days to absorb what has transpired. You need some time to process it and make sense of it all.
There was no time for that. Nope. Thrust into the media, and an arena I wasn’t built to live, sinking seemed easier than swimming.
Emails, texts, phone calls were endless. Those kind, encouraging, and supportive voices definitely outweighed the bad. But I will tell you, I leaned the hard way just how nasty people can be. Some folks were just cruel.
People want details, I get it. This was juicy. Our situation quickly became dinner conversation. Gossip. We were on the receiving end of “did you hear” or “can you believe.”
The only way I can explain the pain would be like a death, only you don’t move on. It’s as if you experience that death over and over, day in and day out. And while you walk through the suffering and grief, you encounter flaming darts shot by people who were once your friends. I wanted to run away and hide.
Two years, later, well, my little brother, the kid I drove to school, sits is in prison. My once big beautiful family is shattered. Relationships are beyond damaged and what once was, is no longer. I lost more than my brother.
There are gaping holes in my heart that won’t be mended; at least not for some time. I miss my family. Every one of them. What I want, well, I just can’t have, at least not now but I’m surviving. I’m more than surviving.
Here’s another piece of reality. God is sovereign. God is faithful and God is so good. Carried through a violent storm by people He lovingly placed in my life, I’m on the other side. No, life isn’t where I want it, not at all. But I understand fully and completely that God will allow painful and debilitating explosions in your path to accomplish a greater Kingdom purpose.
This situation is messy. It is messy and dirty and painful and even dark. And, yet here’s the thing, Jesus Christ is right there in that heap of rubble. He always has been and always will be. My refuge. My strength. My hope.
There was a time I wondered what folks were thinking. There was a time I hid to dodge the endless questions. There was a time I could sense the gossip. There was a time. I’m over it. People are just people and they will do what they will do. I don’t have time to be caught up in nonsense.
You know the power of Jesus when you arrive at that place where peace surpasses the junk and you walk boldly yet humbly with God.
So very far from the outcome I desire. But I know God’s plan is far greater than my desire. I know He’s working in my waiting. Even though there are days, weeks and months where I see nothing, I know with all I am, He is working.
The old is definitely gone… behold, I am doing something new. And through it all, my eyes are on Him… and it is well with me.
–Candy