A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words Or July 20, 20/16

By Nina B

This day – July 20, 2016 – will go down in infamy…

FDR said, “A date which will live in infamy”. He said this in referencing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. Infamy means something bad happened – really bad. Sometimes, some people on the outside of infamy; don’t even realize that something you once had is gone, as you go about your day, your life, numb, limp, empty; while others all about you seem to be so utterly unaware. They, laugh, cry, kiss and make up, talk nonsense, argue senselessly with one another about foolishness, hug, skip, run, walk, sleep, get sick, fall down, plot evil, text, seek love, stuff their mouths, dream… all the while you s c r e a m…

S T O P !!!

STOP EVERYTHING NOW!

You just want the world to

S T O P

…because

something really bad

happened.

Sometimes the world does stop for horrendous, evil, happenings – sometimes. A country shooting down passenger planes, the assassination of a president and later his brother, the Twin Towers in New York on 9/11, the kidnapping of young girls to be used as slaves by Boko Haram, the killing of people on Bastille Day in France, the shooting of Blacks while driving, the killing of police officers in Dallas, the shooting of a Black Behavior Therapist with his confused, autistic client. I could go on and on, but the world hardly ever takes notice of our personal days of infamy…

When my father died and I was supposed to go to the coffin, where he laid, to see him one last time, dead in his coffin. I was one of the last ones to go up. I couldn’t go. I wouldn’t go. I screamed. I wanted the world to…

STOP,

…but it didn’t.

It tugged and pulled at me to put my grief aside. I was only nine – not even quite ten, and the world expected so much of me…

I was supposed to keep going…

I was supposed to keep going the day I lost my innocence at twelve – talk about screaming for the world to see the evil done to me – but it didn’t. It didn’t even notice me. They couldn’t understand my shame, my guilt, my cries for help… I just wanted to hide.

My screaming just wasn’t loud enough to be heard. So, I kept g o i n g ... on empty,

hollow,

broken,

used,

misunderstood,

Until I meet true love…

A promise spoken before our families, our friends of “till death us do part” – and six

children later – and thirty-five years of ups and downs and valleys and mountaintops and dark and light and downs, and dark, and ups and downs, deeper valleys, and settling in the valley, and making lemonade because life handed out lemons, so many bitter, sour lemons… and then light. A flash of light, a promise remembered… but, I was the only one who saw the light, who had the hope, who when you’re faced with everything wrong, yet hoped against the odds because, we made a promise. I made a promise… and my promise was…

Forgotten.

Trashed.

Lied to.

Murdered.

Subject to cancellation.

A nightmare.

Unbelievable.

Cumbersome.

Limiting.

Lost it’s rhythm.

Had become one sided.

Thrown to the floor, dashed, CRASHED, totally obliterated,

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were broken, but together – I thought – but I  g u e s s   n o t !

Today is another day that is for the annuals of my history, a day that will live in my infamy. No one else will be affected quite like me. Family and friends surely will be moved, but not permanently, extended folk won’t give much of this day a passing thought. Strangers won’t bat an eye, miss a beat, hear the cry, the scream to just S T O P.

Hey everyone, an era has come to an end... Shouldn’t we pause, for a moment of silence? It’s so somber. Will you mark the calendar for what happened? Will you remember it next year and offer to buy me a drink – no, I probably wont drink then either.

I go for walks or run errands and I see couples everywhere. It’s like when you buy a new/used car, and you see that car everywhere –the same make and model that you just brought… You just see that car everywhere. It’s like that when you long for something. I see old couples, cute couples who can’t keep their hands off one another, holding hands couples, men holding their wife’s handbag couples, middle aged couples, young couples, mixed race couples, oddly matched couples… happy, smiling, together couples… I just see them everywhere.

I still would like the world to stop. I would like my life’s partner, my other half, my

The empty dining room

helpmate, my husband; to stop his escapades long enough to see what havoc he has spawned.

I fall asleep, then I wake a few hours later just to find I am still here, in my new norm – not at home. There are new norms, there’s a movement through time and space without much thought of “next”, there’s little anticipation for the future – not yet, the wound goes so deep…

Dude, how do you so easily trash 35 years of living, 37 if you count the courtship?

For those of you not knowing this experience, divorce, (I hope you never do) – its closet ally is death, an untimely death, a “I didn’t see that one coming” – even with all the inconsistencies because - Love is blind, (this is why we are so willing to look the other way when truth is screaming so undeniably in our faces of what is right and what is wrong – we say to ourselves, "it cannot be true… because,  I – love – you ”, but one sided love is never enough) . Love hopes all things, (Surely he will return, surely he will come to his senses and see reason – but see reason from whose perspective?, Whose reality?...). Love bears all things, (Is it love when someone gets stuck with the proverbial bag – the bag that never should have been unloaded – the bag that was a truck load of… to be crushed under the weight of bearing it all). Love sacrifices… Which means there are gashes, bruises,

cuts, tears, … wounds, that go so deep into the heart that no one will ever, e v e r  understand – it’s the sacrifice that takes the life out of living, the joy, the taste of food, the satisfaction of completion, the anticipation of the night, the touch of love, the reason for going forward… were it not for my God…

…God has the corner on that market of sacrifice. He sacrificed His son, Jesus, for a creation created in His image – who gives no thought, no idea, no care, nada, for what He did – for love, for hope. Does God’s heart break? All the time. But He knows the end of the story. He knows your last breathe, your last cry…

You see all that we do in this life is in actuality preparation for death so that we can have life. We exist to die to be birthed into life… And I realize right now, that I just lost so many of you, (read that dust laden book call the Bible).

Thank you, Jesus; You gave us something more than this life.

***NEWSFLASH***

Do you really think this life is all that and a bag of chips? Just T H  I N K ! for a moment – this life sucks! But there is more to it if you just read The Book! God’s letter to you, so that you can have life.

Sigh!

You think I’ve gone over the edge – hardly. I’ve landed squarely on my feet and I am standing solely by the grace of my Heavenly Father, Whose hand I can N E V E R fall out of, nor run away from, Who holds every tear I’ve ever wept, Who has heard every scream I’ve cried.

I have never been better - because I am not alone - never was - never will be.

Can you say the same?

Soli Deo Gloria

Nina B. :-)