"The search for God begins at the point of need."
Catherine Marshall
The outward sign of my loss was the ever-present C-section scar—a physical devastation to me. This fiery red, tender scar reduced me to a state of rage. I’d stand awash in a sick feeling that I’d been mutilated, for nothing.
I now bore
a permanent mark, with nothing, absolutely
nothing, to show for it. No reward for hours of labor. No happy ending. No
prize making the pain and suffering profitable, forgettable, or even enjoyable. My vociferous ego incessantly
reminded me that before surgery the only part of my body that hadn’t yet
succumbed to the negative effects of aging was my abdomen—a firm, flat stomach
I didn’t have to work very hard to maintain. Now it hung puckered and puffy, a
marsupial-like pouch.
There were
moments I actually envisioned horrid cackling erupting from its staple-marked
edges. The unavoidable, repulsive vision taunted and jeered at me from my unforgiving, honest mirror,
and I repeatedly restrained myself from giving it a good punch. I wanted to
excise the scar; amputate the hideous reminder. The last of my physical
attributes had been decimated, and ugly resentment directed toward Victoria and
everyone else remotely responsible or connected with defecting my body this way
crept into my damaged psyche. I fueled the anger by refusing to let it go. I
rooted myself in it.
One night
during a rather intense episode of blemish obsession, Chris and I entered into
one of our ever-more-frequent confrontations. Lying in bed, staring at the
ceiling and rapidly drowning myself in the disfigurement, I tossed back and
forth then deliberately heaved several audible sighs, hoping, expecting Chris to roll over and
tenderly ask what was wrong. Instead of tenderness an angry burst of “What did
I do this time?” exploded from his
lips as he slammed his fists into the mattress before rising abruptly from the
bed.
“What makes
you think this anything to do with you!?” I shouted back, my anger spewing
forth like violently erupting lava. “Are you so self-centered that you think all of my pain has anything to do with
you!? Why can’t I be mad—really angry—about what surgery has done
to my body? Why can’t I just share that with
you? I have a permanent scar and nothing
to show for it! It’s a constant
reminder to me of my loss!”
Oh, how
badly I needed someone to tell me it was okay; I needed my husband to give me some sign that I was still okay, that he
still needed and wanted me. That he didn’t blame me for what happened. I
craved assurance that it wasn’t my fault. As horrible as the scar seemed at
that moment, it was merely a distraction from the larger, more critical issue:
I just needed someone to listen to
me, to hold me. To quiet my anguished
soul. But Chris was unwilling or incapable of responding favorably to my
camouflaged desire. And I was so steeped in my own pain that I couldn’t see
his; and I’d conveniently, selfishly
forgotten that it was our loss, not
just mine.
“I don’t know what you want from me; what you expect from me! Do you think you are the only one hurting? I can’t do anything for you!” he fired back as he exited our
bedroom.
I
recognized his hurt, but I was convinced I suffered more than he. After all, he
wasn’t the one recovering from emergency surgery; he wasn’t the one who came so
dangerously close to dying. He certainly wasn’t displaying any great waves of
sorrow, in my presence anyway. His only public display of grief occurred that
fateful morning in the hospital.
In my mind
I, alone, lay abandoned among the wreckage, deserted and deteriorating amidst a
sea of people. Absorbed in self-pity, I’d blossomed into a self-imposed martyr
and disregarded the fact that Chris had been a helpless spectator to his wife
nearly hemorrhaging to death, not once, but twice, and been forced to make that gut-wrenching choice between the life
of his dying wife and letting his daughter go.
There was,
indeed, plenty Chris could do for me, and
volumes I could do for him. I needed reassurance; and he refused to talk
about it. He needed understanding and patience, and I remained oblivious of his
personal pain. Looking back on it, I know I should have explained to him what I was experiencing and asked for his help, told him what I needed instead of just waiting
for and expecting him to automatically know and provide it. And I could have
just held him in silence, without expecting that he grieve at the same pace as I, or quickly divulge his
deepest fears and pains.
But there
we were, stubbornly stacking ugly, isolating bricks between us, wallowing in self-imposed
emotional exile.
Yet there was Someone who could help me relinquish
my self-absorption and to finally heal. He stood ready to take my hand and remake
me, inside out. He waited, patiently watching me unravel. But He wouldn’t make
His next move until I came to the absolute end of myself.
Unfortunately,
I wasn’t there yet.
_______________________________________
NEXT WEEK: I send
out baby announcements, hear words of encouragement from some, silence from
others; and Parker asks some difficult questions…
_________________________________________
Thanks for joining me.
Until next week!
Blessings,
Andrea
In light of the
horrible bombings and senseless death that occurred on American soil last
Monday, and because wars and rumors of wars continue to ebb and flow around the
world, I’d like to give you some thoughts from the late Scottish-American
preacher and former United States Senate Chaplain, Peter Marshall, who wrote
these words during the Second World War:
“There is
no use trying to evade the issue.
There are
times God does not intervene—
The fact
that He does nothing is one of the most baffling mysteries in
Christian life.
It was H.
G. Wells who voiced the dilemma that many troubled hearts
have faced
in war time:
‘Either
God has the power to stop all this carnage and
killing
and He doesn’t care,
or
else He does care, and He doesn’t have the
power
to stop it.’
“But that
is not the answer…
As long as
there is sin in the world.
As long as
there is greed
selfishness
hate in the hearts of men
there will
be war….
It is only
because God is God that He is reckless enough to allow
human
beings such free will as has led the world into this
present
catastrophe.
God could
have prevented war!
Do you
doubt for a moment that God has not the power?
But suppose
He had used it?
Men would
then have lost their free agency…
They would
no longer be souls endowed with the ability to choose…
They would
then become puppets
robots
machines
toy
soldiers instead.
No, God is
playing a much bigger game.
He is awaiting
an awakened sense of the responsibility of brotherhood
in the
hearts of men and women everywhere.
He will not
do for us the things that we can do for ourselves….”
(Taken from Catherine
Marshall’s book, Beyond Our Selves: a
woman’s pilgrimage
in faith; 1961.)
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