You found me…

So, it’s Good Friday and I felt I needed to post this today. It’s been written for a week but until yesterday I wasn’t planning on editing it for an actual post. It’s deeply personal and just a little odd. But I’m compelled. Maybe someone needs it. I hope you’re not offended Sweet Ones…it’s just my heart. It’s a bit different to add to a Beautiful Life posts but my relationship with the Father truly gives me a beautiful life so if you want to, sit with me for a moment…

 

You know by now that God uses music to speak to me big time. Not only Christian music Peeps. Oh the horror, I know. This time it’s the new song by The Fray, You Found Me… The first line in the song offends The Husband a little, so I’m sorry about that, but the chorus is what spoke to me…

“Where were you when everything was falling apart?

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me

Lying on the floor surrounded, surrounded

Why’d you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?

Just a little late, you found me, you found me.”

This song has been on my iPod for weeks and playing on the radio twenty times a day. Each and every time I hear it, there’s this deep hurt that starts bubbling to the surface.  A vaguely familiar hurt. But, true to my nature, I stuff it and keep moving.

Then, in spin class the other day, it came on for the cool-down.  “Where were you, just a little late…?”

I doubled over with a sob. Apparently you can stuff hurt for only so long.  I’m losing my mind was my first thought as I quickly changed my shoes and got the heck out of there.  This is a God thing was my second thought.

In the car I pulled out my iPod and glutton for punishment that I am, played the song. Over and over and over.

As I drove, a memory tugged at the corner of my consciousness. A ten minute time frame while I was at the hospital with my daughter Stephie last month. It was after her emergency C-Section. (Stephie had HELLP Syndrome and was “very sick”. HELLP Syndrome can be dangerous for mother and baby. But especially for the mother.) It was around midnight and I was alone in the big waiting room. Quiet and almost dark, the hospital felt a little scary and my nerves were fried after the rough day.

Over the intercom came a loud voice…”Code in the purple tower. Room 3–,” I didn’t hear the number, I leapt to my feet, Stephie was in room 348…were we in the purple tower? The loud call came again…”Code…”

I started to hyperventilate. I grasped at the neck of my jacket and ran to the doors that led to the patient rooms.  I couldn’t make myself go through the doors. I remember saying “No, please no, please God no…”  I was terrified it was Stephie…I was terrified of loosing her…why?

Rain drops splattered my windshield. The song played on. As I flipped on my wipers another memory clamored for attention. Another night in a different hospital…

 Keeping vigil as Mom lay in the CCU of Saint Joes. We were there for four days straight. Three times in those four days the loud call came over the intercom…”Code in CCU…” All three times they were for Mom. Razor sharp panic…uncontrollable, razor sharp panic sliced through me as doctors and nurses ran into my mother’s room.

 Right there in my car I felt that panic all over again.

“Why do I have such a lack of faith?” I prayed.”I’m so afraid. What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I have just trusted you with Stephie? Why was I terrified the worst would happen?” But I already knew the answer.

Because…sometimes, the worst does happen.

The rain pounded so hard and loud now, that I could barely hear the song. ”Lost and insecure you found me, you found me…lying on the floor surrounded, surrounded…why’d you have to wait…where were you?…”

And then I heard someone scream…”Where were you? “

It was me.

And there it was.

I had no idea that’s what I was thinking. No idea,that this deep hurt was buried in me. But there it was. Ugly and faithless. Shallow and immature. I felt so ashamed.

Jesus wept…Jesus wept…Jesus wept…Jesus wept…Jesus wept…Jesus wept…

Right then and there in the midst of my breakdown over and over came the thought…Jesus wept. Over and over and over. Finally I acknowledged it;
“You wept because Lazarus died” I said out loud.

I was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. The thought came quick and clear. I wept because of Mary… 

I breathed in the thought…Mary?

I tried to remember exactly what Mary said to Jesus.  And then remembering…could it be?

I rushed home and found my Bible and there it was, what Mary said to Jesus…”Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.” 

Like reading this for the first time, I sensed a hurt in Mary beyond the loss of her brother…a profound desperate hurt. Maybe even a feeling of abandonment. Jesus wasn’t there with her in her darkest hour. If He’d been there He could have done something.

Could she really have been feeling what I felt? Do other Christian’s feel this way, lost, insecure, left … left alone in our most desperate times?

But more importantly, does God understand that hurt and does it trouble Him to the point of weeping?

I’m not a theologian. I clearly have hardly an inkling of faith. I will tell you however, if one of my children felt deeply hurt and abandoned by me in their darkest hour, it would kill me. I would go mad with the thought of them feeling so alone. I would walk, no run, on broken glass to get to one of my children who needed me…how much more would Father God do for His children? How much more must it hurt Him when we feel abandoned?

If you are thinking I’m off my rocker about now, you may be right. You really don’t need to correct me,just say a prayer for me.

But if any of this touches something deep in you, know that I’m praying for you Sweet Ones. Know that God’s not surprised by our feelings and I pray He’ll meet each one of us right where we are and bring healing on this Good Friday…the day we focus on His Son’s death…

~oh and hang on Sweet Peas…Sunday’s coming.

Here’s the song if you’d like to listen…again, I’m sorry if it’s offensive in any way to any one…