through the past, darkly

Every so often, I have one of those fitful nights when I really, honestly can’t sleep. I think about things-nothing major-and hope for the best to fall back asleep. Tax time brought back a lot of painful memories of how the past year transpired and played out. I didn’t think that it would impact me as much as it did. Instead of claiming two children, it was one. Instead of claiming adoption expenses, it was a failure.


The remaining pieces of my heart went into tiny mosaics.

I laid awake in bed the last few nights, having the past year play out in my mind. The emotional roller coaster that I was on, the turmoil and tumult my family went through. . It was prolonged grief, and since November I have started to slowly claw my way out of the pit. I am starting to see the morning light and letting the darkness fade. This past year has seen my faith and relationships tested beyond compare. The saying that you don’t know who has your back until you’re in need is very true. People who I thought I could count on turned out to not be true blue, other people completely surprised me and stepped up to the proverbial plate.

My faith kept getting tested over the course of the past year, and to perfectly honest, inwardly I turned my back on G-d. Outwardly I continued to worship and praise, and pray and study but on the inside I was as dry as the Sahara. My faith wasn’t even as small as a mustard seed, it was microscopic. I felt abandoned. I cried out to Him, why did you put me through all this? Haven’t I had enough? You continue to make me suffer. I have lived a good life yet You punish me.

I was angry at Him, despite my dependence on Him. I was mad that my whole family had to suffer, that I was blind to warning signs and had selected vision. I was angry that my dreams were shattered like glass breaking into shards. I was angry that my son was affected on so many levels. There was such angry and vitriol in my home for months on end. I had given the devil a foothold into my life, and he was ready to settle in for the long haul.

There is real evil in the world. I’ve seen it, experienced it and lived it. It’s not evil on the same level as genocide or a serial killer. It’s an every day evil that is so insidious you don’t even notice it until its too late. It starts with a few small failings here and there. You just don’t do something that you always do. Nothing big, nothing major. For example, you always mop the kitchen floor at night, one day you just decide you won’t do it. It spirals down into a habit of not doing it. Then you decide you’re just too tired to pray at night, so you skip it. The next day, when you realize you haven’t been reduced to a pile of ashes, you skip it again. And again. And so on. Until the habit you had has been broken and a new, bad for you one has formed. This level of evil would rumple and crumple me, unless I turned my back and excised it. I can’t even begin to list the bad for me habits this everyday evil created in my life-and as a consequence, my family’s lives. But with surgical precision, I have removed the cancerous growth. Now I am in follow up treatment, with daily prayer and conversation. I am returning to pursuits that I laid aside last spring. I am enjoying my kitchen with a ferocity that has been unmatched in years. I am even getting truly serious about getting healthy again. My sewing machine is no longer idle. The cardstock is being dusted off. I am becoming whole again. Laughter is again ringing out in my home.

The darkness before dawn yields the most magnificent sunrises.