Shattered Dreams & Broken Pieces (a Rewind Entry)

Largely the Whisper was born out of time of emotional crisis in my life.  It was a few years back while recuperating from a surgery that left me barren and led to the chain of events that birthed “a waiting woman’s whisper.”

Surgery: I had a phenomenal medical team and an even better prayer team that supported and surrounded me.  Like any self-respecting charismatic, neo-Pentecostal, crazy-faith Christian I solicited my sister-friends, peers, leadership team at church and family to join me believing God for a miracle.  We had fasted, prayed, believed in faith and possessed a righteous hope for a positive outcome.  I would later learn that God had answered our prayer, because my surgery was far more difficult than I had imagined.  Life itself was my miracle.

A Great Loss: Other than the passing of my grandparents who despite living full lives left a crater sized hole in my heart when they moved onto glory- this was my first great loss.  At least with my grandparents I had been known and loved them.   But this was all together different.  My dream had died!  The thing I had hoped for, even presumed since I was a child would no longer be a reality.  I never new it.  It was dream. 

Sure, there were other ways I could and maybe someday would parent…but at that time I only felt loss.  I couldn’t understand how this had become my reality, my story, my truth.  The little girl who had kept herself for marriage, waited for sex, now at 39 was without a womb!  There were no words.

When I first awakened in the recovery room and my doctor told me the outcome, I had a peace.  I finally understood Philippians 4:7 “the Peace of God that passes all understanding.”  I did not cry, I felt no pain, I had peace.   I would later recognize that this Peace was a gift and a grace given to me by God as He divinely shielded me from the emotional pain while my body began the “two month” process of healing.   Two months, ha! It was more like a year+ before I did not have a daily reminder of some sort of what my body had gone through. 

I had my first cry the day after I got home from the hospital, about 7 days after surgery.  I didn’t cry every day, but instead I would cry about once a week.  Almost like on schedule, every Sunday night during my recuperation period I would cry.  But as the feeling came back in my body, my soul was growing numb.

In Crisis: While my crisis began emotionally, after about seven months it had morphed into a spiritual problem.  I was morning.  I was hurting. I had grown numb.  This is where the problem came in.  Numbness creates a distance between you and the God, you and Christ, you and Holy Spirit.  This is because you cannot feel when you are numb.  Ironically, my numbness did not, at first at least, effect my ability to worship.  What I was feeling emotionally had no negative impact on my commitment and devotion to God.  I had decided as a youth there was no turning back.  Plus God’s goodness, despite my present emotional state, could not compare to anything else.  Receiving the gifts and graces of God in one’s life is inexplicable.  Its something you must experience for yourself to fully understand.  So me and God were good.

Nonetheless, a chance meeting let me see that something was wrong inside.  Problem being, I did not care.  I was having uncharacteristic thoughts and was ready to follow through on them.  I saw a rising indifference in me. Why wait.  I was wondering why I had kept myself if this was going to be the outcome.  I asked myself…why had I not gone ahead and have sex as a teen or during college or even in my 20’s and early 30’s?  Why did I wait for a dream that had never showed up?  Where was my love and marriage- the supposed prize for waiting on the Lord to bring the desires of my heart?  I wanted to know.  So maybe waiting didn’t make any sense anymore, others had done their thing, had their fun and repented and had moved on to, what appeared to be full wonderful lives of faith AND they had husbands too.  Maybe I should play with him….

I knew I needed help!  Although a virgin, I was not without sexual, very sexual encounters (sins of days gone by).  But I had been waiting for years- most times completely obedient and without physical contact.  But now with my feelings back, I wanted to be touched.  I needed to feel again.  On a sub-conscience level it was like I was saying to myself, if I could not dream, then at least I would feel.  I was headed for sin.

At the surface it would seem that I was having a full on pity-party, but it was so much deeper.  I was hurt at my core.  Yet, I was functioning fully- showing up, teaching, preaching, coaching, mentoring and loving on the people of God.  But inside a callous was growing around the wounds to my heart.  Tears had long since stopped; except for the occasional inconvenient whimper.  I was hurt emotionally, but I was also suffering spiritually, as I later discovered I was not only hurt, I had grown angry.

Therapy: Being a Pastor, I knew I needed help and this was not a scenario for “physician heal thy own self.”  Yet, at first, I put off going for help.  Like a storm coming upon the horizon, I knew I was headed from trouble.  Having seen it manifest in others time and time again, I was approaching an intimate first-hand encounter with despair, depression and disobedience.  I knew that therapy was necessary, not pastoral counseling. I needed to go take a seat on somebody’s couch.  Shoot, I might need to lie down.

Today I am healthy.  I have been healed of my heart disease and I have again found the power to hope and to dream again.  In fact, now my desire for my husband is stronger than I could ever have imagined.  From the broken pieces of my dream, a more beautiful God-centered vessel (dream) has emerged.  I am grateful to my now friend OB1, who was the object of my affection for a short moment which revealed to me that I was ready.  It’s been almost four years since I woke up in recovery with that Peace of God.  I am grateful to God for my journey with all its intricacies and through it all, though tattered and tested, I still have “that Peace.”  Girl… it feels good to dream again…

So I wait...

          I have been waiting...

                    I will wait...

                              for the one God will send.

                                            - Ms. Godiva Sweet

P.S.  I know I have left major parts out, but the issues of this entry could fill an entire book.  I will periodically do these rewinds that will fill in the blanks.  I appreciate your grace as I continue to whisper (and sometime whine).