Come the Morning

    "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness," Lamentations 3:22-23

  My Jesus Centered Bible has some inserts to help God's Word become more relatable. It's lying open at Matthew 14 where the miracle of feeding the five thousand is recorded. I didn't decide to open it there but "random" happenstance has provided something special. The inserts are not something I read very often but, as always, the Lord directed my eyes where there is something He wants me to see

  The author of this particular insert says, "When we face challenges that expose our limitations, Jesus wants us to remember that He gives sufficiency out of His own "good treasure"--He's rich with it."

  Yesterday's storm of tears has quieted but, like the ocean, there are still currents of sorrow flowing near my heart and throat. For years, I've described grief like this as a ball of string made up of dozens of individual pieces or events. Each one is their own tether to the facets of unexpressed grief. Yet, they are all interwoven. When one piece gets pulled, others unravel and I end up holding a tangled, incomprehensible mess.

  That's what happened last night: an unravelling.

  While I was asleep, the Lord picked up the pieces and patiently wound it back into a ball.

  

  The last major unravelling landed me on a Psych ward. That's where I found a key to begin pulling the ball apart without the whole thing landing on my lap: four pages of paper, each with one sentence written on it. I started with "The wife of an adulterer." 

   It took three months to complete them because all I did was write down the emotions associated with each topic. Jesus sat with me through all of it so I was able to be honest and not hide behind the "polite" conditioning of my upbringing and culture. No one but He was to see them anyways. That makes it easier. Some things aren't to be shared with other people.

  I think this might be a technique to revisit. It might help unravel the complex feelings and damage done by narcissistic abuse. This is especially true when there has been more than one person involved. They are individual, yet interconnected. Just like the ball of string.

  I'll start with the key people in my life who were responsible for such abuse. Even though there are others, I will trust the Lord to bring them to mind as He sees fit. I'll let Him pull the strings as needed.

  And so begins the long, slow journey towards healing. I will trust the Lord to lead me into repentance, grace and eventually, forgiveness. That's all I want because only then will I be free and this ugly ole ball of broken string can find its way into the fire where it belongs.

  God is good. All the time. AMEN!