Everything in me is screaming right now. Everything in me is sobbing. And every part of me is exhausted from trying to keep the Everything quiet and calm, so that no one else will see. It’s not out of shame. Quite the contrary, if I was ashamed of being so utterly human I wouldn’t write about it here. It’s because I don’t want to be one more burden on anyone’s shoulders. It seems that a lot of people I know are choosing a similar “sacrifice” in order to keep content those who love them. But is it really a sacrifice, or are we being selfish by not letting anyone else in? Is it really saving someone from carrying a burden, or are we just afraid that no matter who we take it to, they won’t be able to help?

I haven’t posted on here in a long time. Because I haven’t written in a long time. I haven’t written anything. My poor beta readers for my book… I told them they would have a manuscript by February and here we are and… nothing. I haven’t been able to do it. Writing is my life. It has almost always been my life. But lately, I have been so overwhelmed that I can’t bring myself to sit down and do it. Even fiction takes some heart, and my heart and soul have felt too heavy.

I haven’t had words to give.

Then again, I kept refusing to ask for them.

No, I haven’t experienced some recent tragedy. I’ve actually had quite a few really great things happen in my life lately! But sometimes those good things feel like out of place props in an inappropriate setting. My story itself doesn’t seem so bad, but the setting— the background— is a bit dim. People around me are hurting, and I can’t do anything about it. I am begging for changes myself, and they aren’t coming. I believe in God. I pray to God. Whether we think of it as God or the Universe or just Something or Someone, I think most of us feel that there is something bigger than us.

So what do you do when Someone doesn’t come through? 

When someone you love is depressed and hurting and feeling hopeless about a job they feel chained to forever?

When one of your closest friends is dealing with the death of someone they love deeply?

When another one of your dearest friends is dealing with financial issues that seem to never end?

And when you beg and plead and fall to the ground imploring Someone to finally heal you and give you the children you so desperately long to hold?

And Someone keeps letting the pain come, wave after wave, without seemingly any change to make it all better. Watching someone you love suffer, and being unable to change it, is the worst form of torture. So why would Anyone choose to stand by and do nothing, when They DO have the power to change things? You’re going to hate me for this, but…

I don’t know. 

I don’t know. And sometimes I’m ok with that, and sometimes it drives me absolutely insane and causes me to feel the way I do right now.

I’ve come to realize that it has definitely created some trust issues for me. Somewhere along the way I stopped asking for peace, joy, healing, etc. I was angry that it never seemed to make a difference and I was afraid that it was because even He couldn’t do it. Or just wouldn’t. And then, my dear friend and mentor, Tamara, challenged me. She told me to finally talk to God again and then be still. She said to set a timer and when it was up, write whatever came out. She told me not to worry about whether or not it made sense, to ignore grammar (what?!) and to just pour out whatever came into my  heart onto the page. Ok, Crazy. But I decided to try it. I felt desperate and lonely and I wanted to connect with Him again.

So I grabbed my notebook and a pen. I sat in my living room and talked out loud and I had so much I wanted to say but I just couldn’t get it all out. So I asked for one simple thing: A word or phrase to cling to in this hard time. I finally asked for words. One word, even, that’s all I asked. Then I set a timer, and I laid down on my living room floor with the sun streaming through the window, warming my face.

And I

was

still.

And oh my goodness, it was hard at first. I was so tired but I didn’t want to fall asleep and “miss it.” My mind started to wander, and at first I fought it. But then I got this sense that maybe I should let it roam. And I let go. I remembered moments, both good and bad. I noticed the sound of birds chirping. I noticed the smell of rain in the air. I waded through streams of songs and lyrics and some of my favorite moments in books I love. And then suddenly…nothing. It was so quiet and calm. And still. My timer went off and I sat up, thinking nothing would come out because all I did was peruse random moments of my life.

But I started writing.

I’m not going to share all of it with you. Perhaps, someday, but for now some things are just too precious. There is a moment I want to share with you, though. I was writing random words and phrases, which were pretty cool, and all of a sudden I found myself writing something else. I have come to believe in the last couple of years that far from my imagination getting in the way of real communication with God, it is how He speaks to me the most clearly. This is probably because He gifted me with a VERY active imagination. I believe this is how this excerpt came to be:

                              And why did you stop writing? I made you to love words and

                             to be gifted with them.  We connect here, on the page. So, no…

                            you can’t have just one word or phrase. That’s not who I made 

                           you to be. You can have them all.

And in my mind I saw one of the best moments of film that will ever exist: the library scene in the animated version of Beauty and the Beast. The Beast leads Belle inside, her eyes closed, and hurries to throw the curtains. Light floods the room and plays on Belle’s face, her eyes still closed, as she becomes more and more curious. The Beast finally tells her to open her eyes and she is awestruck. The vast room full of her favorite sort of treasure is beyond what she could have dreamed. And the Beast gives it to her! 

You can have them all. 

Romance. That’s what I got and it’s just what I needed. (Thank you, Tamara, for encouraging me to do this). I now have a picture of this scene sitting on my desk. I didn’t hear any sort of, “Don’t worry, you’ll be pregnant in two months!” or “His dream job is just around the corner, it’s ok!” I got several sweet memories and a promise that someday I would get to dance with Him just like in one of my dreams, and I got the romantic gift of having all the words I could possibly want. And I was satisfied.

Why? My questions weren’t answered. My suffering didn’t cease, and neither did the suffering of the people I love. But I felt loved and cherished, and no longer alone. I knew that the Someone who knew me well enough to send tiny things like my favorite scents and memories and sights could be trusted with the bigger things, too.

But.

That was two months ago.

And I just wrote TODAY that everything in me is screaming and sobbing and exhausted.

Why is that?

Part of it is still a trust thing, I guess. That’s fair. Part of is not being able to comprehend. Many would call it Warfare and I can’t fully argue with that. But… I think a lot of it is just my own fear.

Because it wasn’t just sadness that I felt when I sat with my crying friend on my couch. It was fear that I couldn’t do anything to take away her pain. I couldn’t say anything to make her feel better and I couldn’t speed up her healing process to get her through some of the hardest parts quickly. I couldn’t protect her. (I’m sure she’s reading this, so side note to her: DO NOT FEEL BAD AS YOU READ THIS. That day was sacred and holy ground and I will NEVER regret having the chance to stand there with you).

It wasn’t just frustration and anger on behalf of someone I love as I heard him weep in the hopelessness of things ever getting better. It was fear that I couldn’t change it for him or take on any of this burden for myself, even though I’ve tried.

It wasn’t only sorrow that I experienced as I watched our good friend move into the room that had been set aside as our nursery. I understood; it was empty for so long and he needed a place to stay. It was that I also felt fear, that he would be the only person to ever call that room “home.” That whenever he leaves, it will forever be an empty space.

And we fear empty spaces, don’t we? We want to fill them as quickly as possible. For some reason, we reach a point when an empty space stops looking like potential and promise and starts to look a lot like something we should fear. We rush to fill the empty spaces in our houses, in our schedules, in our hearts.

But often times, Someone is looking at those empty spaces, waiting to be let inside. He promises that He is enough to fill it completely, but we fear that Someone so intangible can’t possibly fulfill that promise.

What are we supposed to do?

Let go.

And let Someone in even though we are afraid.

When losing a dream, whether temporary or permanent,  is devastating to us but everyone else seems to think it’s no big deal, it’s easy to feel lost and afraid and hopeless. The act of letting go here is not necessarily letting go of the dream, but letting go of the need to see it happen our way.

When losing someone we love is dismissed so quickly by other people, but we are still here wondering where they are, it can start to feel like we are alone and unseen and unheard. The act of letting go is not losing the memory and love for this person, but letting go of our need for answers as to why they are gone. We won’t get that answer.

In these processes of loss, it can feel as though we are losing Someone else, as well. We distance ourselves in fear and anger and our hearts break with the loneliness. And so we must have courage. We must have the courage to let go. Even in all of my anger and suffering I find myself drawn back to Someone time and again. I can’t seem to help it. There are times I wanted nothing to do with Him and then suddenly I just couldn’t stand it anymore and I had to be by His side. That sounds a lot more faithful and sure than it really is… He feels quite distant and unreal to me often, as He does to you. I can’t give a logical explanation of why I tend to believe most of the time that He is there… I wish I could. I know it would help.

We can’t control life and we can’t stop all suffering. We want to, desperately. It’s a good thing, in us, that wants to keep others from hurting. But we just can’t end all of that. Someday,  I believe it will happen. But if we don’t want to lose ourselves completely and lose heart and become these shells that walk and talk but can’t truly breathe, we need to stop being so afraid.

We need to have the courage to let it fall apart. To watch it fall apart. We need to have the courage to believe, as we watch it happen, that it will be ok. Does this make us naive? Insane? Possibly. Or maybe, for the first time in a long time, or perhaps ever, we will be at peace. We will let our hearts hurt for what is lost, but we will not be compulsively afraid of what we cannot change. And we will allow those empty spaces that ache and that we wish were filled by something or someone else, to be filled instead with Someone who knows us. Someone who sees us. Someone or Something that we don’t understand, but we are strangely drawn back to time and again. And it is perfectly fine to hope that we don’t have to watch things fall apart! Obviously, that is the preference! But, in those moments when it happens anyway, we need to have this courage. And we need to have this courage BEFORE those moments, too, so that we are ready when they come.

We need to have the courage to let go of the need to understand. The need to know everything. I struggle with this. I like the knowing. I have begged God for YEARS to heal me. I am infertile and

I

HATE

IT.

I beg and cry out for healing. One day I was so angry, I stood in my bedroom and screamed, “Why the fuck won’t you heal me?!”

I am. 

That’s what I heard. Not tangibly heard, like voice in the room, but I heard it all the same.

I have no idea what it means.

Is He healing me of my infertility?

Or is He healing me of so much more? This, at least, I know to be true, whether or not other healing is taking place.

I hate that I don’t know. I want to know. But I need to have the courage to let go and be ok with not knowing. Obviously, I haven’t reached that place, fully. This post makes that fairly clear, I think.

And we need to have the courage to know who we are and to believe it. To know that we are meant for MORE and that we are promised MORE and to reach out for it, whether or not we see it there. To believe that the gifts we are being told to take are ours to claim. And then we need to claim them.

So what’s the point in writing this? Well, first, I want you know you aren’t alone in the fear and the not understanding and the confusion. I don’t get it, either.

But, second, I want to challenge you. Keep asking. Keep leaning onto Someone or Something and other people, too. Don’t hide it. You’re not a burden.

And third, let go. Let peace come in and have the courage to let go and just be and see what happens. It’s ok to ask the questions. Don’t be afraid of the answers. Or the lack of answers. Be ok with not being ready, right away, to say, “it is well” when this is something to be TAUGHT, not something inherent in us. Let go of the preconceived notion that you have to be ok and you have to do it alone, and instead find Someone and ask Him for your words. Your library. Whatever that is for you. Dare to ask. And then have the courage to grab hold of it when it comes. I am trying very hard to do that.

I hate suffering. I want it gone. This whole post probably seems so random and all mixed up and it definitely is those things. I just HAD to find a way to get the words out. Please, know that I don’t have it all figured out (should be pretty clear by now) and that if I can help you at all, I will. I know I didn’t really give much advice. I’m still learning, here.  I just needed to melt my heart into this post and let you see it and experience it and I needed to give it the chance to help you in any way.

I’m attempting, now, to step out in courage and let this be. I’m attempting to claim the promises and cling to the loving gifts I’ve been given. And you see, I really don’t feel too bad about using so many words to do it.

Someone once told me I could have them all.

Thank you for reading my scribbles and for letting me attempt to assume I know the ways in which you suffer. Thank you for reading this in the midst of your loss. And thank you for letting me walk alongside you in your pain, and for letting me write about it.

It is sacred ground, I know. 

Grace, Peace, and Love to you, always,

Dannika