It is the first week of Advent, a Tuesday. My body seems to be falling apart, and no one has any concrete answers. A few speculations, but it just feels like they are trying to placate me with something. I start with anger, rage. I want to lash out, punish someone. I know it is irrational . But it makes illogical sense somehow in my emotion-driven brain. I will punish my body.
But I can’t. That’s not an option anymore. I have charges to keep and ground to maintain. Hard-won ground that I cannot afford to lose. My loved ones cannot afford to suffer the consequences of my illogical temper tantrum. Nevertheless, I lash out at my body for two days. I give myself two days to have my starvation strike.
As my indulgence draws to a close, I crumple, resigned to my state of debilitation, and sink into an even more terrifying stage of lethargic apathy. Knowing that this can’t continue, I reach out feebly only to be met with helpless concern from those who love me. What can they do? They can’t heal me. Body or mind. I reach out again via text, but I know that such efforts are fruitless. I need a miracle.
The world sits, waiting, wounds wide open, festering, infected. We are desperate, grasping for something, anything, but we open empty hands. I sit, broken, holding a sleeping baby, weeping weak and bitter tears into his innocence. Too much. Life is too much. The physical pain. The emotional pain. I am crippled by the agony and have no answers. I simply cannot maintain the status quo anymore. My tears evidence my release. I let go.
In my other hand, I hold my phone, a life-line of sorts. A devotional appears on my email. It promises hope. It is hope week of Advent. Fancy that. The irony is not at all comical at this point in my pain. It is just heart-piercing. A dagger. I know that in my agony, I represent something larger, a deeper, more acute world-wide agony. All is not right, and I am not alone in my despair. We are collectively wailing and weeping, longing, but not daring to hope for a miracle. We just can’t hold it together anymore. If nothing else, Advent carries with it a sense of release, exhale, and deeper surrender. Sometimes, that comes coupled with despair.
I’ve read this devotional before. She wrote it last year during Advent. The author will wait for the unlikely, in search of a miracle, just a glimpse. The Morpho butterfly will land wide open blue, impossibly, on her shoulder for a solid 25 minutes, and she will rejoice, reassured by the presence of God. It stands as a symbol of hope. I scoff. I feel a solidarity with the cynical world, who scoffs with me. God doesn’t do that for me. He hates me. Or worse yet, He just doesn’t even care.
A wide open weep stumbles out of my mouth. Tears splash the muslin baby blanket, wrapping my innocent child. No hope. No butterflies. No real help is available from doctors, from friends, from family, or even, maybe especially, from God. He’s silent. I pause, as the world pauses now, in the prolonged silence of death. We hold our breath. A bit longer.
Nothing….
A baby’s belly-laugh breaks the sickening silence. His sleep-enshrouded mirth opens a pin-prick of light in the midst of a pitch-black death-night. In the midst of my broken sob, I see my child, still in slumber, laughing out loud at something. Maybe it’s a dream, maybe he is responding to my body’s heaves. Nevertheless, he laughs a laugh that only a baby could muster in the midst of his deepest sleep. His laugh rises like music notes to meet my song of lament, and our emotions unite. Tears still flowing, I join in his laughter-song. I join my son, and joy invades, takes residence in my sorrow. This baby, oblivious to the depths of my pain, has become the means of grace through which hope takes flight. My tears still flow freely, and they mingle with tears of joy, of hope.
Out of the depths of my longing hopelessness, I look down to see a sleeping child laugh. My child, who represents hope, joy, and renewed life. All is not lost I am not forgotten. We are not forgotten. God is with us. He has manifested Himself in a tiny baby boy.
The Beautiful Broken 