I can’t sleep. Since my Auntie Pat in-law bought me "The Shack" book I’ve been reading it everyday! It’s real good, but scary too! I like to read it while in bed, just about to fall asleep, because reading makes me sleepy, but the scary pain that is happening in the book is bringing back scary pain that hit home for me at the end of April of 2007.

I keep playing the scene over and over again, of my eighteen year old brother stabbing and beating my mom. If it wasn’t for that neighbor that waved the golf club at my brother, while my brother waved the knife at him, my mom would probably be dead. Since this (and other reasons as to why this happened) it is as though my mom and brother are dead to me now. I don’t talk to either of them anymore! It’s too stressful and too crazy! I don’t know if it is harder to think them dead when they’re not, or to know they’re dead when they are?

The web of pain, and chaos, this family turmoil brought to me, was very hard to escape but with the help of my husband, I have been slowly de-sticking myself from the web, walking away from the entrapment of it all, but the past seems to squeeze it’s way back into what little joy I have had a glimpse of, haunting me in my thoughts and in my sleep.

l feel like I’m holding tightly to my sane thoughts, trying not to lose myself in this pain. I feel as though I’m teeter-tawtering on the edge of a pit of depression/craziness. My job, it feels, tries to push me toward the darkness lurking inside this pit, over the cliff.  I’m holding on to God, like he’s reaching out a hand similiar to that of a limb on a tree. I’m fighting against my work pressure, the pain like that of a powerful wind pushing me toward the darkness below, but I’m not alone in this fight.

God is like a tree to me and this tree is on the edge of this cliff with me, it’s limbs stretched out for me to grab hold of. Every time I feel like I’m about to fall I grab hold of that tree’s closest limb for dear life, praying it would pull me close, so I don’t have to be frightened by this cliff of pain. The pain seems so strong too, like a strong vacuuming wind about to pull me down off the edge into the darkness that lies below.

Thank-you Jesus for being securely rooted and strong. Thank-you Jesus for being planted right next to me on this cliff. Thank-you for stretching out your limb of support. For holding me when I feel like I could so easily fall, and when I do fall into sadness, thank-you for catching me by your roots that go deep into the ground, limbs sticking out at just the right places on the sides of the cliff, so that when I do fall, I don’t fall too far down.
I always see you here with me. Thank-you Jesus!