This is not the blog post I planned to write, nor is it one that I wanted to write.  However, sometimes, something happens and although you really don’t want to write about, you know that someone else goes through the same thing and maybe, they just need to be reminded that they aren’t alone.

This past week was a rough one in our household.  Honestly, it caught me off guard.  After nearly 4 years of being a single-mom, 4 years of it being just me and my kids, we have all grown accustom  to this and it really doesn’t bother us much anymore.  Even around holidays.  In the beginning, every holiday was a challenge.  The hurt of no longer feeling complete, the hurt of abandonment was always amplified around the holidays.  A holiday became a stark reminder of what we had lost.

However, as the years went by, we began to make our own memories and God placed other people in our lives that have become like family and holidays began to be happier again.  So I was totally caught off guard earlier this week when each of us seemed to break down.  Everyone was having a bad day, everyone was in tears and everyone was fighting.  It wasn’t until one of my sons lost it and started screaming about not having a dad to teach him things, that it dawned on me….I have seen this before.

For the first couple years, every time a holiday approached we went through this.  Each of us holding our own hurt inside and then taking out our pain on each other.  However, as I said, it has gotten better and we no longer go through this much anymore.  Listening to my son was a fresh reminder of the long-lasting hurt that divorce causes.  I watched a pod cast from John Piper this week on marriage (you can watch it here) and he made a statement about the pain of divorce that was so spot on, it was unreal.  He said

 “Few things are more painful than divorce. It cuts to the depths of personhood unlike any other relational gash. It is emotionally more heart-wrenching than the death of a spouse. Death is usually clean pain. Divorce is usually dirty pain. In other words, the enormous loss of a spouse in death is compounded in divorce by the ugliness of sin and moral outrage at being so wronged.” John Piper

It is often said that time heals all wounds.  That so isn’t true.  Only Jesus heals all wounds.  And deep cut wounds take time to heal.  Wounds created by the tearing apart of what was never meant to be torn,  wounds created by the tearing apart of covenant relationship are some of the deepest wounds around.  So when I was doing my bible reading it was no surprise that God had me reading Psalm 77. Just look at vs 2.

“I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;
    my life was an open wound that wouldn’t heal.” Psalm 77:2 MSG

So what do we do when those cuts that are so thinly healed over are re-opened again?  We do just what the Psalmist said, we go looking for the Lord!  I have spent much time this past week pouring my heart out to God.  Crying out to him for strength, for peace for me and for my children.  For healing for the brokenness in our lives.  And God answered by freshly reminding me of Who He is, of all He has done in my life, of how far He has brought me.