Picking Up the Pieces

A song had been running through my head a lot lately. It's called "Defender", and it's sung by Francesca Battistelli. The bridge goes like this:

And when I thought I lost me,

You knew where I left me,

You reintroduced me to your love.

You picked up all my pieces,

Put me back together,

You are the defender of my heart.

It's been running through my head because it is true. I thought I had lost me.

It's been over two years since I've written anything. It took me multiple tries to even remember how to log on to this blog. 

Why? What happened? Nothing profound. Nothing life-shattering. Nothing world-altering. Instead, what happened was an insidious creep of busyness.

It started off with a decision two years ago to begin working on my doctorate. Writing became about papers and assignments. Responsibilities got added to responsibilities. What was a busy season became a busy year became a life without margins. Things that I loved to do were put aside for things that I had to do but enjoyed doing. Then the things that I had to do were put aside for the things I had to do most urgently, and all the other things that I had to do were pushed off until "later". And "later" became later and later and that became never. Without my realising it, tasks that I had to do but enjoyed doing became tasks I had to do and resented, and the things that I used to love doing became simply tasks I had to do.

By this spring, life had become an endless sprint for survival. I spent my nights lying awake with my mind flying to pieces, and my days dragging my sleep-deprived body through the motions. All the joy had leeched from my life. I was left with a series of obligations I couldn't fulfil and an overwhelming sense of failure and defeat. I had lost myself in the busyness of life.

Finally, in May, the pieces began to fall.  I was a jittery, strung-out mess. I couldn't think straight. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't read. I couldn't sit still. I felt like I was going to explode out of my own skin. For four months, I spent as much time outside as I could. I built a garden. I dug dirt and planted plants. I moved great quantities of soil, compost, grit, and mulch, one wheelbarrowful at a time. I helped to scrape, sand, wash, repair, prime, and paint a 100-year-old porch. I helped with haying. I rode my horse. I walked my dog. I spent a week at a cottage.

And slowly, over the last months, God is picking up the pieces and is putting me back together.

It has been hard, coming back. It is a blow to my pride to have to say, "No, I did nothing this summer." It has been hard to say, I can't do it all. I can't manage. I feel like a slacker and a failure, though I know that these things are not true. At the same time, I am not eager to pick it all back up. I feel like I am finally emerging from a very dark place, a place I did not realise was as dark as it was until now that I am finally becoming clear of it. The thought of going back there frightens me. I find myself internally flinching, as though I might get burned, at the thought of touching any of it ever again. I thought I had lost me, and the darkness terrifies me.

So, I am stepping forward slowly. There is a profound sense that God is reintroducing me to his love. All my busyness, all my "I can do it" so quickly becomes an idol -- an idol of pride that separates me from his love. I don't intend that when I get busy. I have the best of intentions: I want to honour him; I want to be a faithful disciple who serves his people well. But it runs away with me. Perhaps I run away with it? It all ends up being way too much Martha and not nearly enough Mari (anne). I'm not sure how it happens, only that it does happen, and that when it happens, it invariably leads to a whole lot of broken pieces and a sense of lost self. So I am stepping forward slowly, and finding that though I had lost me, Jesus has never lost me. He has known where I was all along, and he is picking up the pieces and putting me back together.

And, for the first time in years, I have thought, Maybe I should revisit that blog.

It's a good sign, I think.

Defender of my heart.