New death reopens unhealed wounds. The coarsest salt. There is a heaviness on my heart. It is where I bury my sorrows when I don’t know how, or just don’t want to live with them. The heaviness is a macabre comfort to me. Sometimes I feel like the heaviness is the presence of God. Sometimes I am not sure if it isn’t just the sorrows that I have locked away. It is bursting at the seams.
I keep pushing it deeper. I don’t have the fortitude to face the sorrows head-on. As if I can just bring them up from the depths of my soul when I am ready. On my own time. As if I will ever be ready. As if holding them inside isn’t poisoning me.
How do you explain that you’re crumbling inside because your Gramma died … five years ago? Or your brother died last year? Or your Papaman died last week, even though you have not seen him since you were 6?
Each loss burns new holes in my heart, and I fill them in with sorrows. Packed tight with anguish. So tight my heart hardens. I know I have to pull the sorrows out, and lay them at the foot of the cross. But opening old, festered wounds hurts. And, I still don’t have the fortitude. Not to hold together a heart with that many holes.
Maybe I am not supposed to hold it together on my own?
I know I am supposed to lay it all at the foot of the cross. I know it in my head, and I think I know if in my heart. But, I know it in an abstract, big picture kind of way. I need the concrete, detailed steps. I need someone to hold my hand. To walk me through it.
Maybe I am not meant to walk on my own?
I understand that I need to lay my sorrows at the foot of the cross in the same way that I understand electricity. I know that when I flip a switch the light will come on, because of electricity. And some wires. But, I don’t really understand.
Maybe I am not meant to understand?
Maybe we aren’t meant to understand fully. Maybe we aren’t meant to walk alone. Maybe we aren’t meant to hold it together on our own. You know how well-meaning people tell you that God never gives you more than you can handle? Humbly, I’d like to challenge that notion.
God does give us more than we can handle, and He does so on purpose.
He does so that we might never think we are ever doing anything of our own merits. He gives us more than we can handle because there is nothing that He can’t handle. And in Him do we give over our sorrows, our joys, our struggles, our triumphs, our whole hearts, and our whole lives. In Him do we place our trust. And in Him do we find hope and peace.
Copyright 2017 Amanda Torres originally published at In Earthen Vessels.
Image Copyright 2017 Istock. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published at CatholicMom.com and is shared here with permission.
