Accidentally Angela

Life has shot arrows at all of us. Unfortunately it isn’t some figurative bow they come from, but actual hands and mouths of people we know. Christians like to shoot their wounded, so they are gone and don’t remind them of their failures in ministry. But then…..others still open arms and hearts, like Ann Voskamp does, to try to answer questions, to help us not feel alone, to remind us we are not the only wounded soul on this planet…..sad is that, but true. Ann, I want to thank you for your blog. http://www.aholyexperience.com/ It has been a refreshing fountain for me to come and sit beside. You are a blessing to me.

A Place of Defense

I have been reading her for a few weeks now, her life is so different than mine, but still we have suffered similar things. Funny that thing of experience. Pain knows no boundaries, and we have all been touched by it. One of my dear Catholic friends once told me our pain is never wasted, God sees it as a sacrifice, sees and aches and hears our cries, so to never feel our pain is wasted. I am 4 or 5 years divorced from my former husband of 28 years, 3 children, and now 6 grand-children. Never thought it would be like that. But the nights when all I could do was collapse on my kitchen floor and cry, and ask the same questions we all have asked, “Why God? Why me? What did I do to deserve this, why are You letting this happen to me, to us, to my family?” Left for a time wondering if He even heard me, ever, at all.

But then, in a desperate night, feeling like a piece of garbage thrown away, God sent a friend. An old friend I wasn’t in touch with, who suddenly had my cell number and was calling me. Do I answer, or do I not? I answered, and then decided not to kill myself that night, not giving into the aching part of me that screamed I was a failure and it was all my fault. Because of course it wasn’t. God gave her, my friend, what I needed in that desperate hour to not do a desperate thing. And I made it through that night, and then a week, a month, almost a year…..

A place to rest...

Then again, when I needed some desperate touch from someone in flesh and blood and not just ethereal God, another friend from long ago and far away calls, warning of disaster, need to change this and not do that, real specific things she couldn’t have known without Someone giving her details. Once again, disaster was averted, and I was ok, and didn’t feel so lost, or abandoned or uncared for.

I pray for those of you who have suffered too. Suffered at the hands of friends, suffered at the hands of family, suffered from places too vast to mention here. I pray for you. For the same God who came to my desperate need and rescue to do the same wonderful things you need, and rescue you from a pit of despair, or a dark night or cloudy day. I know it won’t be exactly the same as what He did for me, because you need specific things for yourselves. I will be watching and reading as you share. Tell me how you have been rescued, how God and the universe did what you needed, and when and how.

You are not alone. If you are reading this, you are not alone. Others have suffered and survived and grown through it. You can too. That is also a prayer I will pray for you. I pray for your heart and soul to be washed in peace, to be rinsed in love and to be softened in hope. To dry and be strong, not brittle or hard, but strength of character, of honor, of justice. If injustice has been served to you, do not become the thing you hate and serve injustice to others. Serve Justice, Rightness, Quality. Do not become the thing you hate. Do not give in to it. Reach out and reach up. You can do this.

We are here together in this space and time. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I cherish each response. As always, Angela

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