Tonia’s Pain

I “met” Tonia online.  We were both learning how to care for our adopted children’s hair. We both have 4 bio kids and 2 adopted kids.  She reads my blog and I read hers.  She purchased some of my winter prints a few weeks back.  I am blessed by the friendship of my online friends.

Tonia would read my posts and comment on how much our lives were alike.  But, we had no idea how much they would become alike.

In the past 2 weeks, Tonia’s life turned upside down.  Tonia is now a single mom like me.  Betrayal. Shock. Lies. Pain.

I will not pretend that I have the words to describe what I know that Tonia is feeling right now.  I don’t know that there are words.

It’s one of those, sit with me while I cry & let me tell you how awful this all is, times.

It’s one of those times you wish you had an answer but there really is none.

I realized as I started to let my mind go to where I know Tonia’s mind is at right now, I didn’t want to go there.  There are memories there that I don’t want to remember.  There is pain there that is so intense that I don’t know if I could remember.

I wish I had a formula for “how to survive being left, betrayed, divorced, & hurting day after day after day”.  I wish I had a formula of what to do each day to assure that you will make it to the other side.  I can remember wishing that at the time I was living one breath to the next.

When I look back at that time, I don’t know how I survived.  I don’t know how I’ve made it to today.  I really don’t.  Because I know that I am weak.  And I am broken. And I am unable to survive this kind of tragedy.  Just like Tonia is.

I know that every day I had to make choices to breath.  Get up.  Get dressed.  Eat. Breath again.  I know that I clung to God like He was my last hope.

He is.

Every day I had to choose to trust and believe that somehow God was going to get us through this.  I still have to do that.  I say I “don’t know how”, because it’s true.  I don’t understand His ways, I just know that as I trust, He does.

He is that for all of us.  If we will only let Him.

He is Tonia and her 6 children’s only hope.  He is her husband’s only hope.  And mine.

God blows my mind with how He can use the internet to connect people in different states, who never met, and bring healing and comfort and understanding to one another.

God got me through each and every day of the past 4 years and 5 months.  One day at a time.  One hour at a time.  One breath at a time.  And it was hard, the hardest thing I ever did.  It still is hard.  But, He does it.  I don’t know how.

I read this morning, something Beth Moore said… 

“I’ve grown to enjoy God with time.   Intimacy with God grows through sharing every realm of experience.  I’ve wept bitterly with Him.  I’ve screamed in frustration.  Sometimes I thought He was going to break my heart in two.  But, I’ve also laughed out loud.  Wept with unspeakable joy.  Gone to my knees in awe.  Squealed with excitement”  --Beth Moore, Breaking Free

Isn’t that true.  We grow closer with people as we go through life with them.  As we go through life with God, we grow closer to Him too.  And I realize again just how much more I have grown to love, understand, and treasure my God, My Savior, as I walked through the valley of the shadow of death.

It’s incredibly humbling.  He is incredibly amazing.

I pray for my friend Tonia and her children.  As I pray for her, my mind turns away from my own troubles and I remember the blessing of thinking about someone else other than myself, again.

My prayer for Tonia goes something like this…

May the God who got me through, get you through too.  May He bring peace that passes all understanding.  May He bring joy in the morning.  May He provide immeasurably more than you could ask or imagine.  May every financial need be met.  May every physical need be met.  Emotional needs.  Spiritual needs.

May He bring people to surround you and lift you in prayer constantly.  May He bring people with meals.  People to clean her house.  People to hug.  People to cry with.  People to baby sit.  People to fix broken things.  People to pay the bills.  People to wash the clothes.  People to bring over groceries.  People to mentor her children.  People to help with homework.  People who are willing to walk out the long haul and don’t get tired of hearing her pain.  People who aren’t afraid of her pain.

God, provide for your daughter, Tonia and her children, as You continually do for me.  Fill even the needs that she doesn’t even know are there.  Fill the loneliness.

Help her to believe that You really do cry with us.  And you see our pain, and you gather all our tears into a bottle, because they are precious to You.  Wrap her in Your Amazing Grace.

Oh, God… my heart breaks to think of anyone going through what we went through… please help them…

Please pray with me for my friend Tonia.  Visit her blog if you like.  Follow her on Twitter if you want.  Twitter is a great way to remember to pray, I’ve found.  (God can use all things for good if we will let Him)

Tonia is also homeschooling her kids (like I was when my marriage fell apart) and has been a stay at home mom for 15 years.  Please pray specifically for these things and that God would show her when she is supposed to go from here.

Just pray. 

And again, thanks to all of those who have prayed and continually pray, and are God’s Hand and Feet to us.

“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”  1 Cor 12:27

Pam