If tears left bruises we would see the impact of emotional suffering and give it the serious attention that it needs.  But too often we experience a trauma recovery drive-thru experience that goes something like this:

Pick up flowers and cards at window #1.

Next, go forward to receive a week’s worth of casserole meals.

At the last window you’ll be handed a bundle of unsolicited advice about “moving on”, “you’re better off” or “maybe if you would have just tried this, things may have ended differently”.

Now head to the “Back to Realatly” exti and hammer down because you’re on a highway where people don’t slow down for crybabies

Healing doesn’t happen in the fast lane.  It is a place to become angry, anxious and numb.  There is fear in slowing down because it would allow time to process the pain and actually deal with the negative emotions associated with loss and trauma.

I’m trying to slow down.  Quiet moments don’t come naturally when you have five children, but the early dawns in July make walks in solitude possible.  Wild flowers are abundant  in the fields and seven are picked for each soul in my family.  Each time I fill my hand  with those flowers I am mindful that many of the Mothers I know could put a bouquet in each hand- one for their babies at home, the other for their babies in heaven.  That is a heartache I have escaped.  I wonder if Father God kept me from such losses because He knew I had been through enough.

Many years ago I lost my own family in a raging storm of dysfunction.  Yes, they’re alive and well but are not apart of my life and sadly don’t know my children.  It has been a crushing burden that has squeezed out countless tear filled prayers.

One day they’ll miss me.

One day I’ll be good enough.

One day they’ll be happy to see me.

Those days of waiting turned into a decade.  My prayers became more sparse, so not to bother my Heavenly Father about my earthly problems.  I had concluded many times that my prayer for restoration was just being denied and it was time to give up.  But in the past few months it has been revealed that those prayers were not denied, just delayed.

My little brother has reached out to me.  Only, he isn’t so little anymore.  He is now a husband and father of three (quite adorable) children.  Losing my brother was like having my arm cut off.  I could function, but it wasn’t the same.  Now we embrace and it is like being home again.  His dear wife wants to have a relationship with me.  She speaks my love language of quality time and I light up every time she sends me a text about getting together again.  And my nephew and nieces…I’ve seen their pictures over the years, but to hold them in my arms and hear “I love you Aunt Dawn” melt me into a puddle.

I always thought this reunion would be the medicine to cure my battle with depression.  But fear has been swooping down on my mind and tears flow expectantly.  It has been difficult to celebrate this long awaited occasion.  What is wrong with me???

In the quiet footsteps of my walk last week I was reminded of Joseph in the Bible, who tragically lost his entire family too at just the age of seventeen.  Over twenty years later…

“And he lifted his eyes and saw his brother Benjamin, his mother’s son…and Joseph hurried, for his emotions were deeply moved towards his brother, and he looked for a place to weep, and went into his room and wept there.”  Genesis 43