The Trusting Broken Heart

Every year I struggle with the days leading up to Mother's Day. I keep thinking I'm getting better, but then I find myself in the greeting card aisle looking at all the words I wish I could say to my mom and then nothing in me feels okay. I was thinking yesterday about how my mom is no longer a part of my life. She once was such a part of my life that I literally couldn't have lived without her. At one point, about 29 years ago, her life sustained mine. It was her heart pumping life into mine. I used to live inside her and now I have to live without her.

What kind of God does that? How could He possibly think that is okay to do? Who does He think He is?

I think these words and I write them to relieve the pressure against my chest, but I don't doubt His love. I don't doubt that this was the best way. This was the best plan.

 When He took my mom almost 10 years ago, my heart shattered. I could feel the shards flowing through my veins, slicing my soul with each surge of blood. But even in the midst of the pain, I could feel a hand gently reaching through my skin to grasp one piece at a time. He placed the fragments, one by one, back in my chest and slowly, painstakingly rebuilt the puzzle of my heart. As He rebuilt it He cut out some of the parts that were poisoned. He formed it into something better. Only He wasn't able to finish it. One piece is missing. One piece was lost. The hole is there, always gaping, never healing.

 But it will be whole someday.

 And so I trust His healing hands. I trust that He broke my heart so that He could rebuild it into something better. I trust in His skill as surgeon to cut into me to help me. To make me bleed so that I can have life- a far better life than I could have had before. The life that my mother's blood once gave me is a mere imitation of it. I trust that when His hammer came down on my heart and the splinters flew apart that He felt it too and the shards of His heart mixed with mine as they flew. And I trust that when I someday stand in His presence, His tools of surgery will be set aside and His scarred hands will wipe these tears off my cheeks. And my heart will finally be whole.