Saving a Life

Summer held death and life and weddings and graduations and loss unavoidable and necessary.  Sweat dripped of relationships that were created for wholeness that left me broken. Ashes touched all of my todays and nows and smelled of my yesterdays and lifetimes ago. Ashes are not easily swept into piles of then and now. Daily terror from the popcorn ceilings and excited smiles of new life mingle together in ashes.  Ashes don’t know where they belong except they are everywhere. Ashes order attachments.

Words that ring in my head like church bells and not like the incessant tinnitus that plagues me are, ” Suzanne, I pray that this season will give you the place to order your attachments.” These words were gently spoken over me on May 7th just a few hours and one sleep after I stood in my firey home unsure of what was happening and what I should save.  Ordering my attachments is saving my life.

I made very few phone calls that day and I took even fewer calls.  It was more than the fire.  It was more than the fear.  It was more than the shock.  It was the ordering of my attachments on Holy Ground.  In the days that followed and still today 9 months later, my whole being cried out: move and fix and problem solve.  My safety was built on the muscle memory of “the doing” all the things inside and out to keep myself safe.  Yet, safety was stolen from me still.  Early May left me with no way to move or fix or problem solve.  Holy Ground left me immobilized as Holy Ground should.  This question whispered in me: What will He do to save your life, a life that no one understands is at risk?

Holy Ground is not the same as safety.  Peacemaking is not the same as peacekeeping. Peacemaking on Holy Ground is messy and painful and gut-wrenching and necessary for me to stay alive.  Making peace has found me sobbing in a house without walls over my children’s mementos and my childhood horrors.  Ashes do not discriminate when you are laying on a concrete slab grieving losses that you know you are only just discovering.  Inventory is taken and the lists are specific.  Things were being named for me: cherry wood spindle bed antique,  Nike shorts size small-hall bedroom, Apple iPhone 6-kitchen.  Things were being counted for me: cosmetics-limit 25 at $5 each-master bath. Naming things and counting moments became life-saving, unavoidable, necessary because unexpected freedom comes from naming and counting and unexpected relief comes when you are cracked wide open trying to count your blessings and the blessings come from someone naming a loss. Loss of innocence, childhood assault, rape repeated, they looked away, who else knew…the days counted by how the ceiling looked while I stared away, the number of men that came and went, the days she slept while I survived. The moments are being named and they count. 

I have not forgotten the blessing of surviving.  I am aware of all the things made new. The silver lining is not lost on me. I am grateful.

Also

I am also grieving and writhing internally over wreckage that was cracked wide open to save my life while standing inside my burning house and deciding how to live and what to save.  Beauty from ashes is born out of fire and loss. My soul and my cells are taking inventory of my loss and counting the days. Holy Ground is not safe but it is where life is found in the ashes.

Not Right Now by Jason Gray

You could see the smoke from a mile away
And trouble always draws a crowd
They wanna tell me that it’ll be okay
But that’s not what I need right now
Not while my house is burning down

I know someday
I know somehow
I’ll be okay
But not right now
Not right now

Tell me if the hope that you know is true
Ever feels like a lie even from a friend
When their words are salt in an open wound
And they just can’t seem to understand
That you haven’t even stopped the bleeding yet

I know someday
I know somehow
I’ll be okay
But not right now
No, not right now

Don’t tell me when I’m grieving
That this happened for a reason
Maybe one day we’ll talk about the dreams that had to die
For new ones to come alive
But not right now

While I wait for the smoke to clear
You don’t even have to speak
Just sit with me in the ashes here
And together we can pray for peace
To the one acquainted with our grief

I know someday
I know somehow
I’ll be okay
But not right now
Not right now
No, not right now