Most of us have been devastated at some time in our lives. Perhaps it was a loved one passing suddenly, a sickness that stole our future or a loss that never gave us a full recovery. No matter how devastating the impact or trauma, we found we must go on with our day to day.
Fortunately we are engineered in such a way that when the upper springs of life dry up we somehow go deep. We may not always recognize our inner drilling skills kicking into action. For most of us it seems we won't make it through this crucial moment, but somehow we move into a new gear called survival and on to what's more like existing than living. Yet something supernatural takes place, something few recognize at the time. A deep well is sunk into the abyss of our horrifying experience, our loss or sorrow, and another tunnel in the network of our pain is drilled to one day be the making of us.
As I look back into my own experiences and can see the broken heart, the loneliness, the pain was actually good for me. Of course I hated it at the time. The loss, the crush, the sorrow seemed to jar my very existence, to block my future and to rob me of my dreams.
The losses were real, the pain was felt and the sorrow cut deep leaving me spinning and wondering how I could survive until morning.
The first BIG devastation was at age 9 when the most beautiful girl I had ever seen came to visit her grandmother. She was tan and blond and somehow attracted to me. I couldn't eat or sleep. I was in ecstasy. She was better than anything my young life had ever experienced to that moment. Without warning, the end of the this bliss came when she left on that dark Saturday morning to go back to Florida. I never saw her again! I never forgot that week of heaven on earth. Some how I survived the loss and something almost magic happen inside me. I tunneled a memory, a feeling and a loss deep into my being at that young age.
Oh, many pressures, sorrows and loses occured over the years, mom and dad passing, my first grandson dying and the beat goes on. Yet each one burrowed a deep furrow into my subconsciousness leaving me the richer in experience but I didn't realize the wealth of it at the time.
One trauma that stands out in my memory is my loss of family and country as I left for Viet Nam. Larry, the 19 year old guy across the street had just been brought home in a box. The war had claimed a kid from my neighborhood. I didn't know him well, but seeing his family mourn was enough to shake me to my foundations. Off I went into the wild blue yonder. Off to face the most alone moments of my lonely life to date. And yet this loneliness was one of the greatest gifts of my young life.
I was faced with the stark reality that the strings had been cut and I was in orbit - free flying half way around the world with no one seemingly caring about me. As this loneliness settled in like darkness shrouding a black forest - I felt another deep well being punched down into my soul. I experienced the hot tears of anger and fear suffocate me as I tried to get my bearings.
It was then the revelation of His presence flooded me. It was at that moment of despair I cried out. He was there and I was no longer alone. In that far away land He was at my side in every assault of loneliness and fear. When the outer enemy fired on us in the jungle rivers or when my inner enemy crushed me - I could hold steady because He was there to comfort and guide me to sanity and safety.
That's been 40 plus years and yet the battle still rages on. A different battle, each crisis a new opportunity to seek Him and faithfully He is still at my side. He promised to NEVER leave me or forsake me.
I have had to privilege to dig deep and have found a network, a honey comb of tunnels with each flowing into rich memories of His abiding presence. How about you? Do your deepest pains link up with hope and does it leave you with Him watching over you? Why not ask Him to make sense of the confusion and the pain - He can you know, as a matter of fact that's why you're reading this right now...
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