So getting real in our recoveries, and writing for real about recovery, means admitting I woke up this morning curled up with one hand behind my head and my other in a fist on my forehead. I also had one of our new songs earworming or ric-rolling (you choose) through my head, the words go “Oh how I love You, Jesus I love You, You give me rest, I’ve found my purpose, oh how I love You…”

Hmmm, curious. So, I lay there for a moment to figure out if I would fall back asleep, or if this was something more to give thought to. Oh yeah, God had business with me.

I have been blessed to be given a clear vision and love for where God wants me to go with my talents. And I have spent much of my life looking for new holes in the backyard to bury them in, fearing any more loss in my life.

Let me provide a little background to this.

My husband has a number of sentimental objects from his childhood that he has kept, one in fact hangs on our wall and is an art project from elementary school (it is quite good!). His family made keepsakes a priority and they stayed in one place for many years. My family, on the other hand, did not. I have a handful of photographs, nothing sentimental really from my growing up years because most everything that I loved and would become attached to would be gone in the next move and the next marriage or divorce- – there were 21 moves and 4 “dads” from the time I was born to the time I left home. No room for excess baggage and sentimentality, so I learned to hold loosely, lest I have something else to grieve.

Thus, it occurred to me this morning that I have an underlying aversion for getting too attached or holding too tightly to anything, because everything was eventually pulled away from me and the grief of it all was enormous. Even as an adult, the disintegration of my marriage, and dreams of being an accountant, this too was snuffed out due to anxiety and a cranky math prof.

Part of me still carries the scars, even though I know through Christ and recovery I am healed, the muscle memory remains and I instinctively flinch when needing to invest emotionally into anything, person, place or thing. The fear nearly overwhelms me and I can barely write this without feeling my soul pull apart. But God says he will pour the gold of His healing into those cracks to make an even lovelier vessel, so I’m willing to be brave and put this out there.

For those of us that struggle with this, let’s continue to try, to take small or big steps forward as faith and grace increase. God is with us, for us and we can do this. Sure, there may be more pain and loss – –  that is part of life. I am going to leave a lovely passage here from C.S. Lewis that says it all.

Love you all.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves