Beyond the Walls

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day who is going through some rough times. She is struggling with her faith and with how so called “Christian” people have treated her. We talked about how she builds walls around herself to protect from all the hurt, something she has done since she was a child. And as I stopped and prayed, asking God to give me words that would help, I had no idea how much and how soon I’d need those words for myself. We talked about what happens if she is able to break down the walls of hurt—which she had started to do before this new bad stuff happened in her life.

I told her that sometimes when you tear down one wall, the only thing beyond it is another wall, and that people and things would almost always let you down.  Putting her faith in people instead of Christ was always going to result in disappointment. She seemed shocked that I was so blunt, but somehow I knew she didn’t need to hear flowery words of sweet comfort right then. She needed a dose of reality.

And today, I find myself right there, in that place of stark reality, whether I want to be there or not. I have shared recently that my husband of almost 39 years has been having health issues. We learned yesterday they are much more serious than we supposed they would be. Cliff had an angiogram and the doctor met me with the news soon after. What we suspected might be a 30% blockage in a “less important artery” (whatever that means), turned out to be a 70% occlusion of the widow maker artery and a 60% blockage in a third one.  We went from expecting a simple stent procedure to scheduling open heart surgery in just over a week.

Now, I know there are all kinds of positives to be think about. They said he is incredibly healthy otherwise and the surgery is low risk; that he should have had a massive coronary by now, and he hasn’t. He should have a lot of damage to the heart muscle, and he doesn’t. He could easily have had a series of dangerous strokes, and that didn’t happen either. But somehow, when you are sitting beside your only love of nearly 40 years, and hearing a stranger talk about stopping his heart for over four hours and putting him on a bypass machine while they operate – all of those positives just flew right out the tiny little window in his room.

As I struggled to make sense of it, and not to cry out loud in my fear, I suddenly thought of the words I had shared with Chris only a few days before. I imagined God smiling, as he told me—"this is just another wall. And beyond this one, there is probably one more."

I am a very visual person and I could see myself, battering a hole in the wall, only to find a new one waiting for me. But as I saw my inner self cower in discouragement and fear between those walls, I also saw my loving Father standing right beside me, taking my hand and lifting me up to peer over the top of that barrier. And I was comforted.

My God is stronger than any walls I find in my life, so I am choosing to cling to him. Sometimes that is all I have the strength to do, but it is sufficient.

Thanks for listening. Caro