Prayers

Two days after arriving in Hawaii, three days after learning the in-vitro didn’t work, I got whacked by something pretty brutal.  That something had the power to reach into my chest and rip my heart right out.  For days I felt like a vampire from a Feehan or Ward novel.  

For ten days I struggled.  I hurt.  I woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the ceiling.  I tried to sleep but woke up before dawn and couldn’t sleep again.  I dragged myself through the day, trying to function, forcing myself to write even as my heart  swung this way, slammed by shock, and then pounded that way by fear, until all I was doing was swinging wildly in the wind.  Thank God I managed to keep writing.  Thank God this week I wrote a couple of chapters even though I couldn’t eat or sleep.  The writing took my mind off things, including the crazy whatever-was-happening-in-my-heart.

In the event you don’t know, I’m a chick with some serious faith, not the faith of  ‘oh dear God, let me find a parking spot’, but the kind of faith that believes we can move mountains, that miracles are always possible, that all things come together for good.  I believe love conquers fear, hands down.

And so this week I prayed.  I prayed as my teeth chattered.  I prayed as I drove.  I prayed as I set up my little office at Tully’s with my alphasmart and my music and my folders of research.  I prayed that love wins.  I believe that love wins.  I believe that fear can kill love if you let it.  But love, freed, love, empowered, trumps all.  I prayed for change.  I prayed for calm.  I prayed to let everything go–all fear, all doubt, all sadness, all pain–so that I could hold on to the one thing that truly mattered.   Love.

Yes, I talk to God, and sometimes I stop talking long enough that God might be able to get a word in edgewise.  Today He got a word in edgewise.  Today, finally, the peace came.  The heart stopped its crazy hot-heart-on-fire-dance.  My stomach calmed.  I might even be able to eat something more than little bits of crackers. 

I don’t know why things happen the way they do.  But they do.  And we can be okay if we just believe.

Love, love, love. 

All we need is love.