I don't know how to make sense of this. I just don't. I've actually told God that more than once. This entire experience has been - still is - beyond me. I have nothing to compare it to in my life. No way to measure it, put it in a box, and shuffle it away. Or even a way to categorize it. It's in a league all its own. I can't understand it, control it, or explain it. It just is.
And right now, it would seem to me and everyone around me that this is the time to celebrate. Only one more visit to the clinic! Yay me! But how can you celebrate when the fire has been put out but all around you lay the charred remains of your house? How do you clap and shout when you've been whittled down and carved out like a tree after the storm has passed?
It's been almost nine weeks.
Only nine weeks. Many people go through months of this, even years.
Such a short space of time. ...and yet, how could so much be stripped away in such a short amount of time?
Losses, losses, losses.
Loss after loss after loss.
All around me, on me, in me...losses.
I started to sing along to a song tonight...and then unexpectedly found myself beginning to cry. Why? Because I suddenly realized how very few times I've sung in the past several weeks. Yes, I've listened to so many good, truth-filled songs throughout this whole experience...but sung along like I used to before? I haven't had the strength or the energy. I've been in survival mode.
"Little" things like this are an expression, even an extension, of me. Who am I apart from music? Who am I when I hardly have the strength to get out of bed...or to carry on a conversation...or do the things I used to do? Who am I when I can't work or contribute anything to the people around me? Who am I without hair? Who am I when I've been whittled down and carved out and all around me lay the charred remains of the kind of life I thought I'd live? Who am I, God?
In time, in time, in time.
In time, I'll find out.
In time, I'll heal.
In, time, I'll be made new.
For now...this is a time to mourn.
So I will mourn well...believing that in time, I will rejoice greatly.