Wounded Bodies, Wounded Hearts

What do you do when everything seems to be falling apart around you? What do you do when you have no idea what to do, yet you are the one who is supposed to have all the answers? What do you do when there is much too much, and you feel like you're drowning? 

So far this year has been full of sickness, worry, and pain. Before you say it, let me tell you I know things could be worse. I know that people are suffering everywhere. I know that people have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their loved ones. Just last week, my hometown experienced a major flood, that devastated its business district and damaged homes. So, here I am, in my home, with food to eat, heat to warm, and clean water to drink. So, who am I to complain? Good question.

I am weak. From a year of depression, anxiety, and heartache.

I am scared. That all that I cling to will be torn away from me, too. Family that I love, friends that I count on, a place to call home.

I am tired. Of nights spent awake, worrying about being a good mother, a good wife, a good person. Nights with a sick child, watching the monitor, in case his poor body would gag and choke yet again on the contents of his stomach.

In the past handful of days, Mr. D has been sick with a stomach bug, I am sick with a cold, and then Andy got the stomach bug, followed by my cold. To make matters much, much worse, yesterday Mr. D pulled my just-poured hot tea onto himself, and suffered a pretty bad burn. I had to wake Andy up from a nap, so he could help me attend to a screaming child, a soaked floor, and my broken heart. We ended up going to Urgent Care, at my insistence, and were given an ointment to help soothe his burned skin, and help prevent infection.

Mr. D is doing much better today, but I keep replaying the episode in my head. What could I have done differently? Why did I have to put the cup of tea on my place mat? Why did I use that big of a cup? Why?? I know that it's not my fault. Yes, I will not put anything on place mats when we're not sitting at the table. Yes, I will try to keep dangerous things out of reach. But, you know what? I am human. I forget. I make mistakes. And, even if I did everything perfect, just right, Mr. D, and anyone I love for that matter, can still get hurt.

I don't have control. I never will. God has been giving both Andy and I that lesson, over and over again this year. Becoming a parent has taken away that last bit of control that I thought I had. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis said it best:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

Today, my heart is broken. It has been broken before, and it will be broken again. I can only hope that I can learn how to let the Divine Healer mend not only our bodies, but our hearts, too.