Only Broken

A couple of months ago I was typing a draft about how I fear happiness just as much as sadness. Sadness, though unwelcome, feels familiar and expected. Happiness seems to be the deceitful houseguest, the one who is welcomed with open arms, delighted by its arrival, yet steals and maims while he is there, leaving the members of the home with the realization that happiness simply picked them up to drop them to a deeper low than ever before.

We all feel life
is a disappointment sometimes.
Life is a disappointment right now.

The kind of disappointment where even happy memories are marred by pain. The kind of disappointment where thoughts of the future bring the loss of not only what might have been, but what almost was. Overwhelming feelings of deep disappointment---promises taken back, a wedding dress that will remain in the back of the closet, flowers and cards and notes that are smashed into the bottom of the trash, confused feelings of betrayal, a feeling of wandering in a desert with no oasis. A jumbled fear that, for some reason, God has doomed me to not be permitted certain blessings.

Life breaks us.
And, right now, I feel broken.

And I desperately wish someone could speak the tiniest glimmer of hope into the brokenness that blinds me from any hope or clarity.

I've been here before. And from being here before, I can often numb the pain, control my thoughts so that they don't weigh me down, stave off the tears for even a few hours at a time, almost consider the hurt a "norm," something to be expected, something I should be a master at managing.

I listen for God to whisper hope. I ache to read or hear words that will open my eyes to His promises for me and not just a sense of continual loss.

Until that solace appears, I reach for the small measure of encouragement I feel with a pen and paper in my hands, or when I pick up my guitars, sit at my keyboard, turn on my microphone, plan a music event. There I find a seed of peace. There I find a bit of hope. There I am reminded of one word: PURPOSE.

I know I have a role to fill in this world of chaos and brokenness. I don't waiver or doubt my highest priority mission, which---between the bouts of tears---prods me to push a little bit further.

But I now also wonder what purpose He has in this repeated pain. Does God want to rescue me? Surprise me? Show me that my life can be different? Does He want (please God, no) to reinforce to me that some blessings I am just not allowed?

Right now I simply hurt.
And want to hear from Him.