Broken Child

When I was in high school, I went on a tour of Israel with a group of adults, led by my dad, as the Army post Chaplain.  The trip was truly remarkable! Beyond the Biblical sites we visited, our trip included some time at the Holocaust Museum. There are so many profound moments I can recall from that one place, but the one I will share with you today involves a statue on the property.  

It is the statue of Yanush Korzack surrounded by a mound of children, in honor of his work with kids.  As I stood before it and took it in, I heard God say, “Carrie, that is you.”  I felt in that moment that God gave me my mission in life to rescue children.  Honestly, it wasn’t something I fully understood in that moment, but have come to unpack its truth throughout my journey. 

Many years later, I was at a local camp during a women’s retreat leading a workshop over the weekend on, “Healing from the Pain in your Past.”  After the workshop, I stood and spoke with a few women as they were unpacking the pain in their hearts.  In that moment, I heard from God again - this time he said, “Some of the children you rescue will be little girls inside grown women.”  

What an amazing revelation?!  Have you ever seen someone share about a trauma in their childhood?  It doesn't matter their current age, its like they have transformed right before your eyes as the pain they carry has transported them to that exact moment years ago.  You can almost see that child before you.  

People are amazing to me, yes, we can stereotype and categorize and use those things to find commonalities and guess at how we will respond in certain situations and yet, being human means we are all unique, we can deviate from our norm at any time without known explanation.  

Two people can go through the exact same crisis - one will be crushed, another will use it as fuel to climb the next peak in life.  No matter what we see on the outside, we never really know the narrative that plays out in someone's heart and head. 

This profound truth struck me again tonight as I watched the latest episode of, “This Is Us.”  We can go on with life, find success and see our dreams revealed and yet no matter what, that child inside of us still lives.  Parts of us remain broken, unless we are intentional to fix it.   We can keep going and growing even with the brokenness remaining inside.  It resurfaces from time to time depending on the triggers we encounter, but it doesn’t go away.  

That is one the biggest lies we believe about our past - if we ignore it, it will go away.  It doesn’t!  

We have to be rescued or choose to rescue ourselves.  That is why I am passionate about helping people explore those broken pieces and allow God to lead them on a journey to put them back together.  We don’t have to live with the broken child, or broken adolescent inside of us our whole lives.  Sure, it will always be our story and affect the way we live but it doesn’t have to disable our thoughts, feelings and actions.  Living with the internal pain, despite the outward success, is unnecessary.  There is freedom.  

What does the little child inside of you need?  How can you be brave and examine what you most fear to face?  That, my friend, is the first step, but one we all must take if we want to live in freedom.  

Connecting with Jesus in a New Way

Today while reading "Walking With God, God's Way" by William Wyatt, I read that our purpose is to be transformed into God's image. Because God doesn't need us, our steps in ministry are to walk alongside God in what he is already doing. Each step of life is about knowing God and becoming more like him. I also read that when we go through awful things (the author shared a story about a missionary rape victim) we get to share in just part of the suffering Christ experienced on the cross. It just got me thinking. The horrible experiences are a connection with the horrible suffering our Savior lived out on the cross. Its an offering of intimacy. Now I am not saying God zaps us with tradegy. Don't forget our God is good, but he allows it and hopes that through it we will find him and know him in a new way.

I have a story that captures some of this, it may be something I've already written about in a previous post. Many years ago, my mom was married to a man named Kurt. Kurt had a difficult childhood. He was exposed to pornography and child abuse from his dad. His mom would just sit back and watch while this would occur. Kurt drank. That is how he coped with tumultuous emotional agony he journeyed. When he drank, he hit my mom.

Our lives with Kurt included hiding, yelling, fighting, pushing, hitting, and inappropriate touching. However, Kurt found God through our life with him. Fast forward about 20 years. Kurt was sick, and dying. Eventually he died. My mom officiated the funeral. Weird, yes, but amazing at the same time. Kurt at one point almost killed my mom. As a girl I watched him try to stab her with a screwdriver after beating her mercilously. Years later she had to have back surgery as a result of the injuries she incurred in that marriage. She will forever be marked physical due to the marriage, but God has healed the heart. God replaced pain with forgiveness and empathy for a hurting man. As I walked through my emotions during all of this, God revealed to me that the worst years of my life, were the best years of Kurt's. I realized that those years showed him God, and I came to a place in my heart of gratitude and acceptance. It was worth all the pain if Kurt found God through it. Those feelings weren't there for any other reason except God put them there.

I felt the amazing glow of 2 Corinthians 4:7 in my own life:

"We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves." (NLT)

My suffering in those years (and a few other issues in my life) have allowed me to share with others and be empathetic to the life experience of those around me. May God bring you to this place as you have walked and continue to walk in a place of pain. May God be your rescue, your guiding light and your sacred companion. Let that light shine through your cracks, and may you find comfort in his understanding as he held all of that pain on the cross.

What Pain Really Means

As I watched the end of "Marley & Me" tonight and saw the pain in the faces of the characters as they said goodbye to a dear friend, it brought me to the journey of pain I have experienced over the past 6 months. I realized that each area of pain is present because of hopes and dreams and relationships. Its the presence of an open heart to the people around me that even allows me the chance for heartache. If I were closed off I would not be able to experience anything good or bad in this life.

The loss of Sandie pained me so because she dwelled within my heart and I allowed her to mean something to me beyond the title, "mother-in-law," and Kurt's news of cancer hurt me because I had allowed God the opportunity to create warmth in my heart where deep brokeness once lived. I allowed God to let love flow for a man that I never thought I could love. Of course, the pain of a miscarriage for what I wanted and what now had opened the door to be, yet was taken away.

Pain is present because I am present in my life. I am not just sitting by while the days pass tuning into the latest drama of reality tv to fill my heart, but I living, loving, hoping, dreaming, and allowing whatever may come to just be. I accept, though at times I want to pick what comes my way. Even in the face of so much pain, I will embrace this thing called life.

Grief stricken

I wish I could explain the pain I feel in my loss of the baby, and all that came with it. Its been hard to walk in life and see dreams fall to the ground. Its been hard to celebrate in other's joyous moments when they seem to point to my pain. At times, though I know this is not true, I feel God mocks me as the things I praised him for seem to fade away and as each week brings 3 or 4 more pregnant friends. I know God is good, and I know he loves me. I recognize that my heartache is far less than others' suffering around the world, but that knowledge does not comfort me. Its hard to find joy when I find myself daily swimming in grief pools. I know all will be well, but my heart wants to explode inside my chest. This too shall pass, but for now it just hurts worse than any break-up has even broken my heart.

While I thank people for their pointing to the encouragement of knowing I may now get pregnant, it almost feels worse. Like a desire was finally given only to be taken away. It hurts.

The Grief Process

There are seven stages to grief. Shock, Denial, Bargaining, Guilt, Anger, Depression and finally, Acceptance.

With my recent miscarriage, I feel like I quickly experienced shock and denial and passed by bargaining and guilt straight to anger. I have parked my car there with a quick trip to depression on the occasion. I find myself spouting off things I can and can't do now that I am not pregnant. Kevin asked me who I was mad at and I don't have an answer for that, but I am angry. Angry my life just can't be easy at any step of the way. Nothing has come easy for me and that is frustrating. I am not angry at God because I know he knows what he is doing. I just wish it could be easier than it is. I have no desire to ask,"why" I just want to know, "what now?" What should my attitude be? How should I approach my life? These are all questions I don't have answers for, and I'm fine with that for now. My emotional process has been interupted by the current physical pain. I had no idea a miscarriage would be so painful. I didn't want to have to have a D&C as it would remind me of my past abortion, and I am thankful that I had the miscarriage a day after discovering it was my envitable future, but I did not expect both the pain the reality of all that would happen. It was shocking and slightly traumatic, but it was nice to have a distraction from my emotions for awhile as I let my body heal.