Easter 2014

Last year Easter was on April 20th. Spencer, Amelia, and I were traveling to Anderson to spend the day with Spencer's family.  Mom was going to spend the day with Ryan and family. We weren't too far from home when Plumb's Need You Now came on the radio.

Well everybody's got a story to tell
And everybody's got a wound to be healed
I want to believe there's beauty here
Cause oh, I get so tired of holding on
I can't let go, I can't move on
I want to believe there's meaning here

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to 
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Standing on a road I didn't plan
Wondering how I got to where I am
I'm trying to hear the still small voice
I'm trying to hear above the noise

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you
God, I need you now.

Oh I walk, oh I walk through the shadows
And I, I am so afraid
Please stay, please stay right beside me
With every single step I take

How many times have you heard me cry out?
And how many times have you given me strength?

How many times have you heard me cry out
"God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to
Just keep breathing?
Oh I need you 
God, I need you now.

I started crying quietly as the lyrics resonated with me. The past few years had been painful. The dissolution of my family being the most heart wrenching. I think in divorce the focus is usually on young children and how it will affect them, little attention is paid to adult children of divorce. I know this because I looked for books for support and guidance. I found one long out of print and another called The Way They Were. It was so depressing in its truths that I stopped reading it. Adult children in a divorce are treated as adults. They shouldn't be.  They should always be treated as children.  Many of the happy memories I had were erased as not being true. I was left with almost a lifetime of tainted memories. 

I feel it necessary to say I do not blame one parent over the other. For those of you outside our family who do, well, you probably don't know the whole story. I digress.

I was sad. Easters had been special, but there were not going to be any more as a whole family. Those days were over. The family I had known for 30 years was gone. My childhood home was gone. My happy memories were gone. What happened to my family was so completely ordinary, but the pain I felt was extraordinary. 

I lamented my troubles that morning not understanding God's plan...not understanding why God had chosen to dissolve my family. I did not understand why God had allowed so much pain to come into my life in the past few years. 

I looked back at the morning in the next months in disbelief. I had no idea what was coming. I laughed at my sadness. My complete and utter ignorance of the mountain ahead. 

"You thought you were sad Danielle..." I shook my head at myself. 

I had no idea God was not done. He was coming for my mother next. 

I understand or I should say I make myself believe there is purpose in everything, but I still live in a daily fear of what next? Spencer? My girls? 

I was watching a movie later that summer with my Mom, August: Osage County. It was a very depressing movie that I do not recommend but one line struck me.

"Thank God we can't tell the future, we'd never get out of bed."

Plumb's song still resonates with me.

Need You Now