Shattered... But Whole?

I saw a picture several years ago and instantly saved the screenshot to live in the archives of my favorite pieces I’ve ever seen and maybe one day possibly recreate…  Imitation being the purest form of flattery and all that jazz…

 It was a simple piece, a man and woman embracing…the woman facing away in his arms… But from the pencil drawing, you could see her back was shattered… Like the porcelain of a teacup.  Chipped…. Held together by what appeared to me to be Scotch tape.  His arms were around her. It reminded me of kintsugi... The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, rendering the piece MORE beautiful because of the breaking.

The picture evoked feelings of safety… But also sadness… and something else. But at the time... I couldn’t voice what that was.

I saved that picture and went back to stare at it… Days… Months went by. 

 I finally decided I wanted to draw one of those for me… For my home… Rarely do I ever complete a piece that is specifically for me. But I drew out the idea… and slowly… ever so slowly …

It began to gather dust. Months passed… I would pull my pencil drawing out and work on her hair… I gave the man a nice clean shave as a representation of my own husband.  I worked on her back… the broken scars… It would make my throat close, and I would put it away.  It was too much to process.

During this time in my life I was walking through some pretty intense mentorship that was beginning to help me to heal in DEEP ways… DEEP wounds that had accumulated through the years… Aches that needed to be addressed. Issues that hadn’t been able to really heal due to patterns of cover up for abuses in a group I once belonged to…  Slights of hand that diverted attention away from the victims… Not just affecting my own family… but also many… many more. Years of willful ignorance… unaddressed patterns of gross negligence at BEST… predatory sin at worst… and the devastating atmosphere that lingers in a group of professing believers where there is no accountability for wrongs done… and gossip that was more of a leisurely socially acceptable past time than an actual sin worth addressing.  

I began to recognize the difference between things that I had control over and things that I did not… I began allowing myself space to grieve for the injustices that were never rectified… The abuses in life that were not only explained away… but then covered up.  Layers of deep hurts in areas of life that were so tender.  I realized I didn’t have to pretend to be “okay.”  I could be real… and the Father would continue to heal.  From everything that I was reading in Scripture, honesty is mandatory… and transparency is key.  Humility goes hand in hand with healing… And I knew if He could do it for me… He could do it for my kids too.  I HAD to trust that even if man fails… The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was good. It had to start with me… Set the example by giving my aches to the Father. Let my kids see the healing happen.

There was indeed a justification for the rage… But I could not control the outcome.  The anger would eat me alive if I didn’t release it.

I began to learn to forgive by taking those moments before the Father in real time and crying out for His mercy… and His strength to forgive.  Again… and again… and again.  Even when the wounds remained… and even when I needed to interact with the people who chose to turn a blind eye.   The ones who abused… the ones who were still held in high esteem.  The wolves in sheep’s clothing who knew exactly how they needed to camouflage their identities so that they could continue to receive the praise of man... The ones who were totally different behind closed doors than they were in a crowd.  The ones who were still wounding others by pretending… The ones who are truly taking the name of the Lord in vain… By wearing His reputation poorly.

Forgive.  Love your enemies.  Bless those who curse you.  Continue to love people. Pray for those who insult you.  Wash.  Rinse. Repeat. I just wanted to be whole.  I wanted to NOT look like the woman in the picture.  I hated her cracks.  Her weaknesses.  I continued to work through the hurts.  Continued to heal.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I pulled out the piece… then put the drawing away.  She hurt too much to look at.  The scars were too deep.  That woman in the drawing never seemed to heal.  And now she had another generation of brokenness to her legacy… The cracks were so deep.

Then things would get better for a bit… and my head would lift.  We would have a windfall, and I wouldn’t be worried about finances for a moment or two…. And I would pull that picture out… and I would draw.

 I started to sculpt the muscles of his arms… But I stalled out there in drawing, and I knew why.

As I was healing and growing… Learning to forgive… I was also recognizing some very unhealthy patterns that had built a wobbly foundation in the relationship between Kerry and I since the beginning.  We were struggling to just hold our family together at times… and we didn’t know how to communicate well... He didn’t know how to lead.  I didn’t know how to follow.  There were years he physically wasn’t able to work, and yet the bills still needed to be paid.

In the chaos that grew through the years after his back injury… I leaned into stubborn independence to try to provide for our family… While he disappeared into the shame of not being able to provide… and  depression.  Silences grew in length and frequency.  Disagreements flared.  The kids saw us scrambling… They were struggling.  Our oldest was watching the boys while Kerry and I tried to hold together the business of the Frame Shop.  The youngest was running wild. I was never fully present anywhere. Trying to glorify the Father in daily decisions… But still.... Anxiety reigned. 

I was trying to heal… but it always seemed just out of my reach.

At some point in the process… a light bulb came on for me, and I began to realize how both my husband and I carried certain behaviors into adulthood from just growing up.  We both had patterns within us of things that we recognized were not healthy… But we simply didn’t know how to change.  They were familiar patterns…  Broken cycles.

I mused one night while thinking about that pencil drawing that it was like Kerry was trying to hold together my brokenness… and all the while he had two fractured arms. And just like that… I NEEDED to pull the drawing out… I sketched in a compound fracture on each of his arms…and it just seemed… right.

Sad… But accurate.

Then came another misunderstanding… another span of days without talking… and I put the picture away again.  Seeing the picture as a testimony to the mess our world was becoming made me angry.  I was so tired of dealing with it all… I longed to be whole…For US to be whole.  But that seemed so impossible.  It was a silly idea… Just another unfinished project.

Our lives seemed to unravel a little more year by year… Deep things that had never been addressed seemed to continue to come back.  Each time… bigger.   The unresolved hurts were palpable and our kids saw through the hypocrisy within the fellowship that we had chosen…. They were beginning to wrongly correlate the wounds caused by other professing believers… with the Father...

 And how could they not?  They knew that Kerry and I were never demanding perfection from other believers, but rather simple honesty… Regularly, they saw major sin was being condoned and even participated in by those in positions of authority with no consequence. They saw us try to approach situations from a Biblical standpoint. And they saw that Matthew 18 doesn’t work when accountability isn’t a priority from the top. 

 That isn’t Biblical.  It isn’t the faith we were teaching them… It was words… Without action. Whitewashed tombs… Pretty on the outside… rotting bones within.

They started to question God… To give in to the hopelessness that seemed to be slowly eating us alive…And we knew that we needed to make some major changes. 

We continued to press into the Father… Our faith… Trying to bring the pieces of the mess into a state of wholeness.  We were trying to learn how to address things and change patterns of behavior that were so ingrained.  Trying to communicate… and yet the divide grew as the pressure mounted.

I kept hearing the running drumbeat…”Take it to the Father…  Stop relying on your husband to bind wounds that can ONLY be healed by the Great Physician. Pray…. And just be still.” That was my motto.  Stop allowing people to push you into projects that the Father didn’t authorize.  Stop being busy with the things that are going to drain you dry. 

Be still. Full stop.

That’s what was missing.   In the being still... the quiet moments of reflection...I recognized that the ONLY way Kerry and I were going to make it was if we each were pressing into the Father for our own healing.  My husband couldn’t hold me tight enough to keep life from ripping me to shreds.  That was never his job.

And the trust I desired to pour out into our marriage wasn’t possible until Kerry learned how to allow the Lord to heal his deep insecurities… The guilt he was steadily carrying for all that had been lost.  The times of complete shut down and radio silence… they needed to be acknowledged without shame or guilt trips. I stopped trying to fix things.  I started listening more…. Speaking much less. Be still.

One day I pulled the picture out and sketched the hands of the Father under the two of us… Surrounding us…. Holding us… Healing… Us.  Together… Or apart.  I didn’t know how or if our marriage would survive… But I knew He would heal us.

 I worked on the picture sporadically through the years… Shaded a touch here and there… Then we would hit another bump and it was back to the imaginary burn pile…  Do I keep it?  Is this worth salvaging?   Will we ever be whole? Will we ever find level ground again?  This is just a silly idea… another unfinished project.  I genuinely didn’t know if our marriage would be salvageable.

Then again…That small voice…”Trust Me.  I alone am faithful. I alone can heal.  Trust me, daughter.  Don’t even look at your husband. He’s on his own healing journey.  You deal directly with Me.”

The years have been long.  Some good.  Some not so noteworthy…

But God.

12 years ago yesterday, my husband announced that something was wrong with his back…It was the beginning of the hardest and most incredible season of growth in our lives to date.  But in some ways… April 28^th marked the anniversary of “what might have been.”  It has always been a painful date…

But not this year…

12 years after the catastrophe of a herniated L5-S1…  I was able to show my husband this drawing… I have a few tweaks to make to it before I put it in a frame. But it turns out… Trusting the Father to hold my marriage while I heal and learn to set boundaries was absolutely the correct step for me.

Turns out with no shock … The Father is indeed faithful.

And it turns out… He DOES heal.  Even the most broken spaces.

Kerry and I have been walking through some very fragile moments of healing these past few months.  With the prayers and unfaltering support of some very close friends, we are beginning to actually heal in ways that I had all but stopped  hoping for years ago.  Our kids are showing signs of healing... and opening back up to faith conversations. I'm so grateful. I cannot express how much that one simple fact means to me.

We don’t know what the next chapter of our lives look like.  We don’t know where we are going to permanently land after selling our home last year… We still have a lot of unanswered questions.  But we KNOW that we are walking with a faithful Father who loves us and is guiding us daily.  All praise and honor be to Him alone! Kerry has been able to regain much of function the in his back and re-enter the work force again after all this time.  He’s been able to hold onto full time hours for the last 3 months… And while he’s actively looking for something that isn’t quite as brutal as being on his feet for 10+ hour shifts… We know the Lord is holding him… Holding us. It's miraculous to see the transformation as I'm watching the Lord restore my husband into the man he was created to be. From ashes... Beauty. From mourning... Shouts of joy!!!

We’ve seen it.  And we are praising.  

We want to be able to pour hope into our brothers and sisters in faith who are STRUGGLING… but have no idea how to even move forward.  Stuck… You’re not crazy. 

You’re not alone.

We didn’t walk through those valleys to be silent.

We are choosing to be advocates for healing.

We are choosing to be advocates for open and honest discussion without shame or condescension.

We choose to acknowledge that people are not perfect and recognize that everyone struggles to communicate.  And that’s okay.  Admission is the beginning of healing.

But we stand firmly on the fact that the Bible is true… and accountability is CRUCIAL.

Transparency in relationships is ESSENTIAL.

The Father is FAITHFUL. 

Please don’t struggle alone.  There ARE genuine people who have made it through some very rough currents and survived.  You are worth the time.  You matter. 

To those who love us deeply and took the phone calls… and followed through… and prayed … and even fasted over our burdens through the years… Thank you for being the hands and feet of Jesus/Yeshua to our family.  Your faith held us in times when ours was dim.  Your examples have reminded me over and over that genuine, transparent and authentic fellowship is possible. And it’s worth creating.  And it’s worth fighting for.  Thank you for loving us enough to walk through healing with us. 

This journey isn’t over… But I’ve seen the Lord save… Won’t He Do It!?!?!