I pray I can say what I want to say despite the fact that my thoughts come out of the Oso tragedy. Over and over again I check out the news feeds on Twitter to find out what is going on in that small corner of the world. There are over twenty people missing in that mudslide, over 20 dead, and the search goes on. Not only are the searchers recovering bodies of beloved community members, they are also recovering pictures, photo albums, toys, and whatever else might be of value to the survivors or victims' families. These items are then cleaned up, decontaminated, and stored until they can be claimed.
I look at those news photos, and try to put myself in the shoes of everyone involved. I can't. I can't imagine having a home demolished by supersaturated mud, and trees. I can't imagine losing a spouse or children, or both. I can't imagine.
But then I can. Here is what the Lord has laid on my heart this past week. What I am watching on the news footage is an re-enactment of what I went through emotionally when I discovered that my husband had molested our granddaughters. Everything that was life as I knew it was destroyed in a blink of an eye. For months I felt trapped in a quagmire I didn't understand. I dug through the carnage around me: broken trust, financial instability, lost ministries, and anger. I dug and I searched for anything resembling my life before the crisis hit, any hint of normalcy. For a long time everything I found cried of filth, shame, embarrassment, and helplessness. Nothing was good.
Thankfully I didn't dig and search alone. My family dug along side me. My church family was giving me their support. My therapist helped me see more clearly and have some understanding of what had transpired. But most important was my Lord who never let go of me. We all worked together to discover items from the "before" life. I don't know what I expected to find, but I wanted nothing to do with photographs, memorabilia, and memories when they popped up. Don't show me pictures of family camping trips. Don't show me maps of places we visited as a couple. At the time, I saw them all as contaminated.
I don't know when decontamination started taking place, but it did. I reached a point where I could go through all the albums I had lovingly and painstakingly put together and written in. I could talk about trips and parties without avoiding the use my husband's name. Decontamination had taken place--not of the pictures or memories, but of my heart.
Today I will no longer say that my life was destroyed. It was merely reconfigured, remodeled, or whatever the changes might be called. God was at work then and still is today. He is in charge of the recovery and rebuilding effort. There are still things being discovered and uncovered in the ruins. Some of them need to be recognized for what they are (sinful thoughts and misdirected emotions) and destroyed. Others things the Lord puts away until I'm decontaminated enough to bring them back into my life. And then there are those things that bring me immediate joy. I love when those are brought to my attention.
I am thankful the Lord has used the tragedy at Oso to show me how he helped me through my own personal destructive landslide. I know he is also working along side the people of Oso as they are beginning their journey out of a pit of destruction. They don't travel alone.
A weary, but joy-filled traveler,
Jan
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