Seeking

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

    and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget,

    I will not forget you!

 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands ... "

Isaiah 49:15-16

Open hands allow water to flow through fingers, and I see the streams descend through my tears. It's a daily arrangement I have, this crying thing, and I don't try to block it unless it heaves against my chest when others are around and how socially inappropriate that would be...

Words in the Bible describe Christ's tears like blood rivulets, and these are just words, right? How can we know tears like blood? Suffering haunts me but I know nothing of these tears like blood.

I read these words in Isaiah yesterday, and I cried again. A life of joys and sorrows like any other, I have led so far, and I am in the midst of darkness this week ... this year. Fleeting hope is oxygen to my spiritlungs, and I've spent time holding my spiritbreath.

I read these words and I remember holding my darling daughter to my breast, her every detail so astonishingly small, so beautiful, and how tenderly I loved her, I love her.

How can God love me this much? More?

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands ...

My hands destroyed my marriage this year. My marriage was a painful place of resentments and discord, a battlefield. But, as I look back now, eight months after my hands destroyed, I see that there was a light of hope there as there is always hope. I chose to look elsewhere. I chose to be happy.

People will tell you things about being happy, I have found. There are those who will say that being happy is of utmost importance. "Find your happiness, follow your heart," is their mantra. Others will tell you that happiness is a temporary state, one that is impossible to maintain. Happiness is not the goal for these people. Doing what is right is their goal.

Mentally, spiritually, I found it all very confusing. I still do.

I know this: I sought happiness outside of my marriage. I chose to get divorced because I was very unhappy with my husband and he knew I was unhappy and he chose not to make any attempts to change. I felt at the time that there was no certainty that he and I could be happy with each other ever.

I still feel exactly the same way. There is no certainty that he and I could have ever been happy together. Knowing him the way I do, I have to admit, I don't think we would have been.

Happiness was the goal... tears marking trails in my skin daily tell the truth of my life post-marriage. My tiny daughter is less tiny, fiercely independent, so intelligent and beautiful. She doesn't know what life was like when her parents were married, but she knows something is off now.

"Did you sleep well?" I ask her.

"Yes. I dream Daddy was at home," she said.

Smiling mouth dying heart, I make joy sounds about her Daddy so she hears goodness and only goodness about him always.

Happiness I sought.

Now I seek the only One who has ever fulfilled me, because the emptiness I have endured without Him has been too great to handle. I have many questions without answers, doubts, and fears but I also finally remember that I have hope.

I'm on a journey to find the One who has engraved me on the palms of His hands because without Him, my hands are empty.