Haunted

Some days I feel haunted.  More recently actually.  I find myself walking down a hallway and before I know it, this path looks all too familiar.  The light dims and somehow I feel alone. Something is lurking.  "It" is following me into my new year, my fresh start seems to have an unfriendly visitor.

And I feel guilty some days.  Like what happened last year shouldn't be on my mind and shouldn't be conversation pieces with people anymore.  "It's in the past Kelli, let it go.  You're not over this yet?  Seriously?"  The voices in my head whisper quietly, slowly poisoning my mind.  "Pull yourself together.  Stop being dramatic
. Nobody understands you.  Just be happy that's what they want you to be.  Over it, Kelli.  Get over, it.  No one cares anymore." 

That's how I feel about myself.  And those voices tell me that's just how the world feels about me. 

There are days I feel that time has been a healthy distance since my last big scary day.  But that's the thing about traumatic events, they don't obey the laws of time and space.  In fact, all it takes is one small reminder of the pain, and before I know it, it feels like March 10th or June 17th all over again. The words, the sights, and the unforgettable parts of those days come back as real as ever. Pain can cut through time and space, paving a highway right back to that day.  You know, the day that changed your life.  The day you found your life in shattered pieces.  The day you couldn't catch your breath and your legs were cut out from under you.  That day. And that day was months away, but the news of friends who have had their turn in the boxing ring with life and I see how life has taken its toll and robbed them of their health and family members becomes all to real for me. And within seconds I weep for them, remembering like yesterday the pain of those days last year.

I'm not superstitious at all, but this year is feeling to eerily familiar, too much like deja vu already.  Last year, I was reading a book by Mark Batterson, this year I am reading his book The Graverobber.  He mentioned something about have you been challenged in your faith and I had to shut the book.  Stop it before it starts again.

And I look outside, and the weather is absurdly cold, ridiculously freezing.  Just like last year.  Bo's birthday came this past weekend, and while it was a joy to celebrate his life, it was a reminder that day was the first of what seemed to be a crazy set of events.  It was last year at this time that Galen was getting his medical exam for life insurance.  Insurance later he would be denied because of the cancer diagnosis.  And guess what, this weekend I'm going through the medical exam for life insurance.

And I'm overwhelmed and anxious.  I can't control anything and that hallway I started down all of a sudden feels like a slippery horrifying slope all over again.

This morning, I got off the phone with the nurse and I just teared up at the possibilities.  At all the future tests, at all the what if's.  I hang up the call and the tears break my eyelids before I can ben think of trying to hold myself together. "God this is a new year, this year was supposed to be a new year, but it's already starting to feel like a nightmare I can't wake up from! Please not something new to deal with, I am not ready. I can't."And I go on with my day and into my classroom. My day comes and goes and I am sitting in my classroom, grading papers as I look up from my desk and out the window.

Breathtaking.

Not words I say often enough as Old Man Winter has brashly moved in.But the soft golden gleams of the warm sun pour into my room and pierce through the subzero temperatures and through the trees flocked in white winter snow. God's breath wisps by as more twinkling flecks of glitter joyously dance as it makes it way to earth.The sight is peaceful and beckons me to turn off the lights in my room and to enjoy the scenery.

I pause.
"Peace. Peace." I hear whispered in my ear. As the words are breathed into my ear, they begin to anchor in my soul, an antidote to those unwelcome voices from before. How wonderful and beautiful is God's creation. I close my eyes and enjoy the embrace of my God who loves me. A scene that is a welcome reminder of His peace. I needed that today, God. Thanks.

It feels as if the voices in my head are silenced, even as I sit there in my darkened room.  As those words of peace are breathed over my spirit, the voices in my head run away, unable to withstand the peace of God I experienced time and time and time again last year.

And maybe some of those thoughts of needing to pull myself together are the thoughts of some people, but it reminds me that the only voice I need to listen to is the one who was faithful to me over the last year, even when I wasn't.  The voice of One who was patient with me, even as I struggled.

And I can't help but think, even as eerily similar this year may be to last, Peter, Jesus' disciple, had gone through something comparable.  He denied Christ, his lord, his leader when Jesus was in his most desperate human moment.  Can you imagine the pain that came alive in the heart of Peter every time he heard a rooster crow?  Everyday he was reminded of his failure, his pain and his own disappointment in himself.   In John 21, after Jesus is resurrected he comes back and restores Peter. He asks him three different times if Peter loves him.  It's the start of reconditioning Peter.   It's the journey to make Peter new.

I'm reminded of the verse in Isaiah, which is my verse for this year,

“Forget about what’s happened;
    don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert
    rivers in the badlands.” (43:18-19).

 Lord, this year make me new.  Make me brand new.  I'm trusting that You can and that You will. And  at that moment I no longer feel haunted anymore.