Yesterday was a hard day. There have been a lot of those lately. It was the first time as a Mom that I was not with my child on his birthday. I thought I would be ok. We had pretended that the previous weekend was his birthday and had had a small party, made a cake, opened presents, decorated the house, had all the fun. But watching him go off to his Father’s this morning broke my heart.

When your child tells you that what they want for their birthday is to not go to Dad’s house, and you have to send them anyway, well, that hurts. I pulled myself together enough to go to church, but cried throughout most of the service. Many reasons for THOSE tears. But I’ll save that for another post.

Later in the afternoon I ventured out for a hike with my pup, hiking against 60 mile an hour winds with icy snow blowing into my face, was a little intense and I’ll be honest, not very enjoyable, BUT I was outside and I needed to be outside. I chose my favorite hiking area because I am usually alone when I go there. Alone enough to cry as I hike, talk out loud to Jesus as I hike. Yesterday was one of those times where I don’t even have the words to pray, except to say over and over, Jesus hold my hand. Walking with my hand out to my side like He is there with me, I felt a little crazy I’ll admit, but He was there. Sometimes in life you just need to know that someone is there with you. I was feeling so very alone that day.

But I was not alone. I never am. Jesus holds my hand and is walking this bumpy, narrow, scary road with me. To the world I might look a little crazy, and that’s ok. I am starting to understand how precious it is to be this close to Jesus, and that you don’t find this closeness without being completely broken. So I can embrace my brokenness and not resent it. I can look to the future with hope that my brokenness led me to deeper understanding and relationship with my Father, the King of Kings.

It is really difficult right now to not feel like this phase will last forever. This unbelievable hard, challenging, exhausting phase. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel but I trust that one day I will.

I have this stupid habit of wanting to jump 5 steps ahead of where I currently stand. I want to skip all this hard stuff and get to the good part. I want to be done with the therapy and the waiting and the healing. I just want to be healed, whole, put together, and not this person who bursts into tears on a regular basis. When do I get to be that person?

But God, in his infinite wisdom, knows that if I skip this hard part, I won’t be whole. I will end up continually trying to pretend that my brokenness is not a part of me. But it is part of me, and it will always be a large part of what shapes me.

My prayer is that my brokenness shapes me to be filled with compassion, humility, servanthood, gratefulness, joy and perseverance. That my faith will never be shaken because I have witnessed firsthand the goodness of our Lord, the faithfulness of His love and the steadfastness of His wisdom.

I pray that I will never stop asking Jesus to hold my hand, even when it makes me look crazy.