in the rubble

 a sweet friend of mine reminded me yesterday of the power of visualizing prayer.

i'm such a visual person and have spent too many months visualizing worst case scenarios or unrealistic and overly hopeful reconciliations post breakup. but, as i sat in quiet prayer with the lord, it all came to me.

a clear vision of sitting in the rubble.

like those images you see of horrible destruction after a hurricane. it's almost unfathomable and it isn't a mess you can just piece back together. 

and there i am. broken. defeated. just sitting amidst the rubble. not wanting to leave quite yet... thinking that if i just try hard enough, i might be able to take these broken pieces and find a way for them to all fit back together again. but they're shambles. broken, splintered, shattered. beyond repair.

i have a hard time reconciling the fact that i just can't fix some things.

i've been sitting there for so long. holding off the bulldozers as they come to clear it all away. not quite ready to give up on that hope.

but i see the lord. i see him pick me up. he carries me ever so gently out of the rubble and reminds me that this isn't something i can piece back together on my own. 

i need to start anew.

brokenhearted and still hurting, i agree. and i'll carry this vision with me through the rebuilding. 

because the next time we build this up, we won't do it the same way as we have before. we've learned what will make it stronger this time around. 

and the lesson beneath it all, that we can't rebuild until we scrape it all away. the hurt, the pain, the lingering hope, the lies, the destructive narratives. those won't be in the foundation of this new structure we're building.

so, here's to letting go. accepting certain defeats but not letting it flatten me for good. i may have been knocked down but i'm no longer sitting in the rubble.