I struggle with the concept of being protected. I find it difficult to give anyone that much power, to entrust myself into the care of another. And in our society being vulnerable and dependant isn't exactly looked highly upon. I guess to be loved enough by another that they would stand guard, at their own potential danger, to ensure your safety is beautiful... well in theory. As long as we have the general concept that we are all fallible...that really no matter how intentional someone is or how desperate they are to keep you safe, there is no guarantee, no real chance that awful things won't happen. But how often do we have high expectations, especially as children, only to fall hard and fall fast into the reality that there is no one big enough or strong enough to really protect you from the harsh pain of this life. To be perfectly honest I have struggled at times with the concept that the Lord is our protector. He is God. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving. And yet sin entered the world and humanity fell. Our freewill allowed us the ability to not only hurt ourselves but also to impose our own will onto another person. We aren't puppets...because what good would love be if it was forced? So I understand all of that- and yet- what good does it do me to have a protector who isn't able to protect me from the freewill of others? As a child I came to many conclusions about this based on my limited ability to conceptualize life outside of myself. Pain and fear and a lack of understanding all jumbled inside of my little head and the only conclusion i could come to was that that I was the cause of everything and I could never ever trust anyone again. If what had happened to me was an example of protection, then protection from anyone was useless to me...it still left me shattered, and alone.
The discussion of protection has been brought up quite often in the last year. I had countless conversations with Tiffany where she explained to me that God's greatest protection for me was in my ability to not remember that which I felt like I wasn't protected from.. There was actually no recollection of memory, that was so dark and so deep it would destroy me. For years He allowed me to forget, until the time came when I could handle it. Which is fantastic, if that memory loss could have lasted forever. But as a 28 year old woman I now feel trapped inside the limited memories of a young child. Over and over and over again they play...each smell, each sound, each whisper echoing as real now as it was all those years ago. It would seem that forgetting still wasn't exactly my idea of protection....because what good is it to forget, if one day its all returns.
The other night I watching the TV show called the Mentalist. It is a crime solving show with a bit of a twist to it. Patrick Jane joined the CBI as a consultant after his daughter and wife were killed by a serial killer named "Red John." His life became dedicated to finding their killer and he found he could more easily find this man while working on the "inside" (police, FBI, CBI etc) instead of on his own. His only motivation however, is to find and kill red john with his own hands. Jane has an amazing ability to read people and emotionally draw things out of a situation that most people would miss. He is brilliant and is an amazing asset to the CBI. Well, in the last episode, while trying to investigate a murder scene Jane is attacked from the back and drowned in a swamp...they of course manage to find and revive him but he has memory loss. Now I know this is just a TV show but stick with me. The doctors say the memory loss is attributed to the fact that often times when the brain had endured great emotional trauma, in self protection it can retreat to only having memories before the traumatic event in the case of physical trauma. So Jane wakes up and doesn't remember anything about his live after meeting his wife...he can't remember her at all. And the doctors say to let the memories come back on their own in attempt not to re traumatize him. To make a long story short, it turns out Jane is a total jerk before meeting his wife. He decides to quite his job steal a bunch of money and move on. He knows there is some great emotional trauma everyone is tip toeing around and he says something to his coworker which hit me...He asked her to just leave him alone, because he is finally happy...something he never was after his wife and daughter were brutally murdered. There was finally an ability to go back to the time "before". Those are my words...to go back to "before". That moment in life when the veil that was up allowed you to see the world as innocent...to have no comprehension of the deep harsh reality of the pain in this world. The evil. In the end, his coworker decides to save him from being the horrible person he was and has now returned to being and leads him to a place where he will remember what happened. So she takes him to his own home and leads him up the stairs to a door that clearly stays closed...and she tells him to go in. Inside is what appears to be the room that his wife and children were raped and murdered in, with the blood thrown against the wall in the shape of a smiley face, the signature of the serial killer.
It is a TV show. I know. But Jane's face...it was the look I know and feel so often...one i have seen in the eyes of others who have faced similar battles. The feeling of recognition, two realities meeting for the first time or for the millionth time...and its as if the world has been pulled out from under your feet. You feel sick and your head is spinning...if only for the amount of time you can stay grounded, and stay in the present. You desperately want to go back to the blank feeling that tells you there is something more but never gives voice to more than a hunch. You want to run and sometimes you try...pleading with your mind to forget. To fall asleep one day and wake up and it be gone. For days, weeks, years, you hold onto the hope that it will. Because how could something that never was come into the here and the now and present itself like it always has been...and somehow you are the only one confused by it. You want the whole world around you to tell you its not true. You want someone to tell you that you are crazy...because anything, ANYTHING, would be better than the truth. The hair raising screams begin- the ones only you can hear... a horror story on repeat in the back of your mind. Nightmares bringing the subconscious to life.... reliving a pain so deep that it was shut off from your mind. Yet every night it comes to life. There is no escape. So you hide and deny and numb in desperate attempt to be free...while only burying yourself faster each day. There aren't words to express it. Literally...because you can't imagine speaking after the vow of silence. You hate that little girl who lives in your mind because if she would just stop crying, stop breathing, stop laying motionless staring at the ceiling then maybe you could move on. They tell you to love her and in disgust you look away...she is the reason for the inability to be happy. She is the reason for the sickness and the loneliness. "Love her?" I mock. I simply wish she would disappear and give me the chance to start living. And so I desperately try to separate myself from her. But it seems moving home has made that harder to do. Around every corner there is a reminder, a memory, a person... hyper vigilance has sewn itself onto my body like a shadow. Anxiety flows through my veins and trembles out through my hands and takes rhythm in my bouncing leg. But the choice to let the past overcome me is no choice at all. There is a life to uphold. A job to work. Friendships to keep...and new ones to be made. And I walk the balance beam, high above the tree tops, believing if I fall it will all be over. So I hold tight to myself, thinking that will be the only thing that won't hurt me. All the while God sent hands reach out on all sides of me, offering help, hope, and support...and I am so desperate to take them it scares me to death. What if I forget how to function without help? What if I lose my ability to need no one? What if I become so desperate to not be alone that I scare everyone away because I cling to them? For so long I have taught myself to never give in to what my heart longs for...the more desperate I am for it the greater the importance to prove my self control in my ability to want it and not give into it. But there are days that the thirst becomes to too great and in shame I take a deep breath in the comfort of someone holding my hand. Oh to be able to admit to weakness, to surrender to love, and to chance everything...and risk the seemingly unbearable pain of learning to be loved and letting some into the deepest places of hurt and then one day chance being alone in it once more.
I know God is faithful. I know his truth and understanding far over shadow my own... I see his faithfulness in the people he has placed in my life...in the fact that he continues to fight on my behalf. I believe this time of year is a reminder of his faithfulness...that he would love us so deeply that he would send his son to be born into this harsh world, then to die a horrific death just so that we could be with him forever. So on the days when the journey seems so long, i make myself remember, He is faithful.
You Are Faithful" - by Michael Boggs
Oh the mountains haven't always moved
When I prayed that they would
And the waters didn't always part
When I believed that they should
But You have promised You'd never leave us
To face this life on our own
So whatever You choose
However You move
I know I'm not alone
In the healing and in the breaking
You are faithful,
You are faithful
In the saving and in the suffering
You are faithful
You are faithful
Through the pieces of a broken life
Your loved has helped me see
I may never understand Your ways
But You'll always be good to me
'Cause You have promised You'd never leave us
To face this life on our own
So whatever You choose
However You move
I know I'm not alone
In the healing and in the breaking
You are faithful
You are faithful
In the saving and in the suffering
You are faithful
You are faithful
Your love is deep enough to drown my fears Lord
The plans You have for me are worth waiting for
