Pushing Past The Numbness

I, like many others, was riveted and in a time-warp back to a decade ago, a time when our innocence was shattered like the glass that flew from the towers.  Our vision was cloudy and black, smoke filled, and it was hard to breathe, much like I can only imagine at Ground Zero.  I was numb.  Then and now, the day after, I feel like something sitting on my chest and it is hard to breathe.

There has been times of great change that are accompanied by times of great uncertainty.  I have lived through those moments and it always seems like it is the most dangerous, most dark, most hopeless just before the emergence of something grand.  It feels even more like that when you think back, rehearse, review, and remember that you put your heart into something, into life, and wonder about the outcome.

This summer, the summer of a decade, had many impacts, riveting, jarring explosions that have left the soul somewhat traumatized, perhaps like we collectively were on 9/12, once the reality set in as to what happened the day before.

I felt betrayed as if someone dropped a ton of bricks on my heart and I could not breathe.  I think that is what we feel like now, a decade later, still at war, our nation not the nation we remember anymore, civil liberties taken away, entire towns being taken over and the people rendered voiceless, a move, an undercurrent that is unsettling, a breaking of a promise, a betrayal of the deep darkness hiding behind a clear sky.

My Bible told me this morning that nothing could separate me from God's love, even as we worry about today and wonder about tomorrow, even in the midst of calamity and hopelessness, nothing can separate me, even as evil swirls around me and I am left with the questions of why someone would do that to me, to my children, to my family, why the answers are unanswered, why the trust was twisted and stabbed back like falling chards from a black sky.

I try to meditate on the hope that there really is a plan, a promise, a purpose in all this, trying to push past the numbness and take a deep breath, feel the rush of cool air blasting in my soul like running into the air conditioning from 115-heat index days of summer.  Hoping for refreshment and renewal, wondering in the silence, pushing past the numbness to feel life again.