Jerri Phillips

As news of the separation spreads, I receive emails, texts, and phone calls asking if I am okay. Ninety percent of the time I answer that I am, and I am being truthful. Most of the time I am thankful for the calm and peace that has settled since the fighting and silent battles have ceased.

Then there are days like today.

Days like today hurt all through me, to my very core. How do I communicate that? How do I communicate the anger without sounding like I am nursing grudges? How do I communicate the pain that defies every word or phrase I know?

I don't know. I simply try to keep putting one foot in front of another, make a longer to do list to fill the time, and try to act sane for anyone watching.

But this isn't sane, and while trying to move forward, I end up on my knees in my bedroom shaking from the pain oozing out of me in loud sobs. The tears seem endless, and the pain feels so deep that I'm going to drown in it.

Prayers come out as gasps for air, and I cannot put a whole sentence together even in my mind.

There is no booming voice from heaven telling me it is fine. There is no overwhelming peace that comes. Just silence...and waves of pain.

And when the torrent has subsided, I sit with my back against the wall, not trusting my knees to hold me up, and I wonder if grace can reach here. Can grace reach beyond my rage at being discarded so easily? Can grace reach into a heart whose trust has been so completely shattered that it is impossible to hold out love but instead cringes at the thought of being touched?

Dear God, show me you, even when things really aren't fine because only with you am I going to really be okay.