I can describe the past few weeks as being full of waves. Some moments I was above the water’s surface. Other moments I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you writing?” someone asked me a few weeks ago.
“No. I have a lot going on.” I didn’t know what else to say. I had been so downcast the past month that I knew I wasn’t writing because I couldn’t find words to describe my pain. I didn’t want to talk about something I was in the middle of figuring out. I had always thought writing happens after an event or experience. Writing happens once you gain all the wisdom from an experience.
Well, I decided to ignore the norm and write during the mess.
Have you ever missed someone? Like heart-fall-out-of-chest miss someone. I hadn’t ever really experienced this until a week ago. I can genuinely say that I miss someone and right now it sucks. But it doesn’t just hurt because they are out of my life, it hurts because I have come to the conclusion that they might never be back in my life. That is what hurts. That is what stings. I can’t understand how it will get better. Yet, I have to believe the sting is worth it. I have to. This pain has made me realize a new thing. I can never be dependent on people more than God. Oh, how easy it is to say that! To live it is another thing entirely.
I remember a scene from the movie San Andreas. The young girl took her last breath above the rising water and then sank below the surface trying to find an escape. She searched for a whole minute before her body became frantic. She knew she was drowning. She knew there wasn’t another opportunity to take a breath. So she gave up, her body convulsing within the murky waters.
My last breath happens often. The waves are continually taking me under. I drown as I remember who I miss. I drown in thoughts of sorrow and thoughts of sweet memories that might never be sweet again. To become dependent on a person is to believe they can sustain you, to believe they can in some way give you the breath you need for the day. But no person can be that for someone. And once you realize you are drowning with or without them, it becomes apparent that things are hopeless. They are not your savior and you are not their savior. How can drowning people save each other? There’s no way. The only person who has the power to give you breath is Jesus Christ, the person outside your problems.
Through all of this, I can say drowning is okay. It is okay because by it, you can see what drags you under. It shows you who or what has failed to sustain you. The pain might not go away. Randomly and all at once, I get distressed feelings in my chest along with a quickening in my breath. Like withdrawal, I stop thinking straight because I feel the need to have this person talk to me or tell me things will be okay. And very often I don’t look hard enough or even want to rise above the turmoil. I give up the fight against drowning.
I let myself drown. I don’t mind it.
But I can’t. You can’t. Don’t give up. Fight for a breath. Fight and know that only Christ can sustain. Fight because there is a reason you still have breath in your lungs. You might not see it. I can’t see it sometimes, but if you look closely, there is a glimpse, a glimpse of the hope above the water’s surface.
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