3 Little Letters: S-A-D

What do those 3 little letters bring up for you? For me, sad is an emotional response embeded in a natural occurance that I have absolutely NO control over. People make us sad, circumstances make us sad, death makes us sad, the weather makes us sad.

I sat awake for a long time last night looking at those 3 little letters. Thinking. Remembering. Full of self doubt and pity. My response has always been-"use the sad default." When things are wrong and I am asked, "What's wrong?" and I answer, "I am sad." People tend to think,  "Gosh that's too bad." End of story. They go away. When I am sad, I want people to leave me alone. Alone. Alone. I just want to be alone.

When I throw myself a pity party (where everyone is invited and no one shows up) I always start at my first---sad: The death of my brother. How his death affected my parents and the way they raised me, how his death affected the small town I grew up in and how I was treated, and how his death affected me to grow up as an only child. Then I travel down the path of  my father's anurism and the year of his absence from my life for rehabilitation, losing grandparents, losing my father to death, being attacked, by a complete stranger, at knife point, suffering through 2 abusive marriages and subsequently 2 horrific divorces-one in which I almost lost my children and the other one in which I nearly lost my life ~S-A-D.

It is amazing how we are healed by the grace of God. I can sit and think about all of these events, but the varnish has been rubbed away by His hands. Those events don't sting anymore. They make me angry at times. Not sad.  I will go to bed tonight and ask him to wipe the varnish away from my latest- sad. As a Mom, anything that affects my children-affects me. Well, one of my offspring is hurting. I know that I will take the responsibility that is mine.

I won't take anyone else's responsibility for these hurts. For, as God has healed my deepest hurts, He also keeps a level hand on my shoulder and no longer allows me to carry all the sins of the past. He loves me. I love my child. We will get through this all together and come out stronger on the other side.

Love turns "sad" into healing. Dear Lord, Please heal us.