Broken.

I was folding laundry.  That's how it began.  I don't know what triggered it, but one minute I was folding towels and the next minute I was bawling like a baby child.  I collapsed on the love seat, covering my mouth with my hand in an attempt to muffle the sobs roaring from the depths of my broken heart.

I felt like I was dying and losing my mind simultaneously.  For months, I couldn't sleep because he was in my dreams, and even in my dreams I couldn't have him.  I was losing weight because I couldn't eat, the sick feeling of emptiness nestling in my stomach and refusing to leave.  His scent, sweet like caramel, still taunted me from a coat in my coat closet and on truly pathetic days, when I wasn't weeping over clean laundry, I would just sit and sniff the collar of that coat until I feared the scent would be lost forever.  There were days when it felt like breathing was nearly too painful, as if every inhale of breath was stabbing me in the chest, and all I could do was pretend to function until I could get home and lock myself in the dark and beg God to take the hurt away.

I couldn't even blame him because I loved him and wanted him to find the best happiness, the richest happiness.  Even if that happiness wasn't supposed to be found with me.  I was so angry and so devastated and no one was to blame.  It was just life, just the way that things needed to turn out, and somehow I needed to be okay with that.  

But I wasn't.  I was depressed.  I was beyond depressed, actually.  I was broken.   

I know what it's like to walk through your own personal seventh circle of Hades.  I know what it's like to feel like you're losing your mind, like the sadness will settle in like a fog and you have no way of knowing if or when it will leave.  I know what it's like to cry from the depths of your being, to feel like the shattered pieces of your heart are being ripped straight from your chest.  I know what it's like to be utterly and completely broken.

And if you're there right now, I just want to reach into your darkness for a moment and tell you that it's going to be okay.  Maybe not today, maybe not next week, maybe not next month.  Maybe in three or four years.  But it is going to be okay.  The tears feel like they'll last forever, but they will run out.  The pain feels like it will last forever, but it will slowly dim, too.  And the cracks left behind?  The mess you're left with after heartache settles?  God does some awesome work with all of it.

And maybe it's not an ended relationship that's left your heart a mess.  Maybe you've lost a job or a home or a dream or a child or parent or friend.  Or maybe you simply wrestle with the darkness and lose.  Whatever your current battle, rest assured that even though others may not know about it, God does.  You're not invisible and you can't hide from Him, even if you're swimming in layers of grief and anger.  He hears you.  He sees you.  And your Light is coming.

I know, because the Light came for me.  I don't remember the exact moment the darkness lifted.  I don't think there was an exact moment.  I think I continually handed my big heartache to my big God and, together, we kept winning small victories.  And each small victory pushed the darkness away more.  I just know that I quit crying over laundry and I stopped sniffing coat collars like a weirdo and I let grace breathe through me so that I could finally breathe again.  It didn't happen overnight for me, and it most likely won't happen overnight for you, either.

But it will happen.

I'm praying for you, friend.  May you find His peace among your broken pieces. 

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." Isaiah 60:1.