In Christ Alone!

I know that seemingly I've been on an even kilter for what seems a fair amount of time now. Yet, a few weeks ago, while attempting to lead a prayer set at the Rock House of Prayer, stirring yet again began.

I got up to pray, and all I could do was cry. Though I didn't hear Jurgen's guitar and voice harmonized with Debbie's singing or Rob's saxophone playing; the memories of coming every Wednesday to early morning prayer with my husband for 3 years or even more, came flooding in. This was the first time since my husband's suicide that I came to RHOP. I had stayed away all this time. I could only make garbled proclamations in between my tears of mourning. I REMEMBERED. I remembered the grogginess of 5:30 a.m. kissing our throats as we prayed and sang. Our ears and heart were tempered by the leading of the Holy Spirit in melodic songs that deeply touched the spirit.

I cried because I wanted to be what we were. I wanted Rob back here, on earth and in my life. The Lord gently reminded me this was not a possible choice. Grief is the loss and mourning is the remembering. How do I mourn Rob gracefully? I don't think that I can. I have grieved very ungracefully with rivers of tears and snot offerings at the altar.  The memories are sometimes wondrous and amazing. I worry that I won't remember the essence of Rob, the goodness of who he was in his right mind in Christ. I have to stop and dig very hard for those memories and yet other times the memories over take me like the flow of many rushing waters.

I have been quietly processing great contemplative questions my Pastor adjured me to consider. His words did not fall on deaf ears, his love was felt in my spirit. I am reminded, God rebukes those He loves. In this time of redefinition I have allowed insecurity to weave itself into my life. This is a new experience for me in these last 22 years of my life. Who I am has changed drastically through my husband's suicide. I have been divorced and know the pain of divorce. The hidden rejection in it. In surviving suicide as a spouse, there is a feeling of blatant silent rejection that you can never address. I have felt the most rejected in this experience, even more rejected then being given up for adoption. There are so many unanswered questions. Too many, in fact. And they play with your mind. Especially security.

In my husband's suicide, I not only lost my husband, but lost all financial security with much debt that I have been working my way to pay off.  Many of my relationships have changed through this journey of surviving suicide. Many that I thought were solid life long friends, don't call or can hardly bare to spend time with me or look me in the eyes. I own my part in that I have not taken the energy or time to call or reinvest in relationships. When it is all said and done, there is no energy left when you are a survivor of suicide. You must be intentional with maintaining relationships, even if others aren't. I had begun to think that I had nothing to share and that I was worthless and so I desperately rode in on other's coat tails looking for affirmation and acceptance I so desperately needed, but could not ask for. This doesn't work.

I need to be honest with myself and remove the subtle mantel of delusion camouflaged as emotional stability. I am a weak, fragile and broken person. I need affirmation and acceptance. Please forgive me for trying to find my desolate needs met in people instead of you, Lord. Thank you God, that I can receive all that I need in my identity from you. In Christ alone!

Excerpt from "Indescribable" the book! by Kimberly Wallace

Father's Loving Arms

Swirls of emotions
like eddies of water
tumbling over rocks reaching
new unknown obstacles
rolling pouring falling flowing
Nothing seems natural
yet somehow feels right
in the midst of the hardest
most difficult places

Will my hope disappear like
sands of time in the watersmeet
where only jetties are revealed?
Or will this hope beyond hope
crash onto embankments
landing on a sea of green
ebbing through leaves of grass?

Redefined on this perilous journey
by lips of death that kissed my beloved
Discovering unsurity in new insecurities
Would I that I could but rest
floating in the loving arms of my Father
like cleansing bath waters caressing
my wounded soul yet buoyed spirit

©10/29/13 Kimberly Wallace

Cleaning the Office

I was attempting to clean out my husbands office today. I haven't really gone in there much since he committed suicide. Please pray for me- I came across a couple of notepads filled with my husband's words of despair and how he felt like such a fraud. My heart is grieved after reading all the words of hopelessness that Rob wrote.

I want to say right here right now, if you are feeling hopeless reach out to someone and tell them how you're feeling so they can pray for you so their prayers can lift you out of that pit When you are unable to climb out of that pit on your own accord. Jesus will be that helping hand. Jesus will be the knot at the end of that rope that you can hold onto. DO NOT LET THE ENEMY WIN THIS BATTLE OR WIN THIS WAR! WE MUST BE VICTORIOUS BY REACHING OUT TO OTHERS IN THE DEEP SADNESS OR DIFFICULTIES OF OUR LIVES!

Uninvited

Today is my late husband's birthday. It is filled with mixed and warring emotions... But I will NOT yield, as I stand on the solid rock of my Father and His promises...


"attempts turning away from and fending off
uninvited unimaginable sadness and anger
become paralyzing parasitical emotions
blurring boundaries truth and trust once gave

somehow in Christ alone, through mercy and grace
I am able to move forward taking back my life
that has been held hostage and ransomed for death
by the suicidal choice to leave the land of the living

and yet the love of my Father God  pervades in this
torn scourged human heart seeking finding hope
that only Christ’s peace can bring in the tempest
of unanswered questions without ever a goodbye"

© Kimberly Anne Wallace 7-19-13

Castles in the Sand

Thundering echoes of threats
hit my threshold of peace and pain
mixing together like sea water and sand
Each wave new again
yet the rhythm remains the same

Each time the mourning arm of grief
attempts to sabotage moments of joy
I see and hear and feel
my Father’s invitation to redemption
He whispers softly
“Old things are passed away
All things are made new!”

Walking this strange and difficult journey
on the beach of surviving suicide
I discover in this new rising tide
there is the choice to be swallowed up
in the invisible undertow
or surf the wave enjoying the ride

Through His promise and His truth
Each tear is redeemed
Every obstacle becomes an opportunity
Every fear becomes love
and my darkness fades to light

© 07-13-13 Kimberly Anne Wallace

Anger and Death

This past Saturday night was the first time since my husband's suicide that I went to a social "event" by myself... I went to Shane Grammer's art show in Roseville and to Ben Woodward's concert in Sacramento! Since Rob's death, any social events that I'd been to, I always went with my "kids" and/or friends. Huge breakthrough!!! Very strange feelings though, to arrive and leave alone...

I've been perplexed at the level of anger towards my late husband, that rises up inside of me. My grief counselor says that I must acknowledge the anger, feel it, then let it go. Easy for her to say!

I find it interesting that I have actually allowed myself to feel the anger and then be intentional about not reacting to the anger and TRULY letting it go. Without Jesus Christ, I KNOW that I would be such a basket case and a puddle of mush, unable to do anything in the emotional state that I have been in. My Heavenly Father has been so faithful to catch me in the dark hardness of my failings...

Birthday

With my birthday coming up, I have been missing my husband so very much and been emotionally instrospective... Sometimes I believe that I have moved from the season of grief, (the loss of my husband) into the season of mourning (remembering my husband). However, I have been greatly deceived into assuming, that this season would be less difficult than the season of grief had been. In some ways, it may appear that way to the onlooker, the outsider, as I learn to do life in this new “normal”. I have struggled to get back to a place of “normal” only to discover that the old “normal” has been redefined!

My life is morphing from surrealism into reality somewhere after the numbness of the first six to nine months of Rob’s suicidal death. There are the oddest of things that bring back memories of my late husband, Rob: a song in the middle of a store or on the radio, seeing a silver blue car streak by, the sound of a siren, the smell of: coffee, cinnabons and krispy cream donuts, and so many other things seemingly unrelated, yet ALL bring back memories of Rob. Those memories flood my mind and often take me mentally hostage and physically paralyzed. Grief and mourning is difficult in itself because it is so non-linear. Adding the aftermath of suicide magnifies these emotions and pain…

I have asked the Father: Will I ever get through the depths of this pain? Will it ever get easier? He gently responds to my questions and encourages me to risk the emotion and the pain, by casting them on Him and stepping out in my Faith… I am reminded that I must answer the invitation of redemption Jesus has given and allow Him to redeem this suicidal death that was so indescribably horrendous. This is an opportunity for others that might not have had the experience of life filled with Jesus’ hope to choose life instead of death in the midst of their pain. When a seed dies, life springs forth… There is a choice of life that incrementally changes all the other consequences of the choice of suicide.

I continue to covet your love and prayers as I walk on this journey of honoring God, hoping that I am exhibiting Jesus Christ's unconditional love no matter what I am experiencing...

Honest Emotional Truth

Emotional Truth

My soul needs consoling. I am having a difficult time having a clear mind and emotionally attempting to keep my chin above water, so that I don't drown in these tears of frustration and grief. I wonder if my heart will ever feel whole again from the pain of Rob`s suicide. I believe that I would feel so different if my husband had died from illness, accident or something other than self murder and suicide. Clinically I understand that there is nothing I could have done differently. Emotionally I replay over and over whether I could have done more. I will never understand why he chose to end his life and turn from the invitation of redemption. I am trying to accept that he couldn't receive his redemption from the Father.

I now have a grid for grief, inconceivable, inconsolable grief. I know what despair feels like, I've experienced that once in my life. When I lost my baby going into my 3rd trimester, the 7th month. I despaired the loss of my child. But I overcame that sadness and despair. I don`t understand depression or the spiral of it long term. I understand it clinically, but again, I do not understand it experientially.

On my way home from a session with a client yesterday, I just started crying, heaving, sobbing, painful tears, seemingly for no reason. They wouldn't stop. This scared me. I pulled into my garage and stayed in my car and cried, painful, heart wrenching, tears. My soul cried. My heart rended a loss that I can`t put  into words. I think I stayed in my car for an hour. I didn't want to depress or scare my roommate. She ended up having a friend over at the house. I fixed us all soup for dinner. Her friend was lamenting about her job, and suddenly I began prophesying over her. Very strange. And yet, it was definitely a Word from God to this young woman. I could sense and feel it.

I find that it is difficult compartmentalizing my pain and emotions and separating them from my every day schedule. It doesn't work to compartmentalize, even when I try, lately. Everyone around me thinks I am this very strong woman of God. But I am not. I am weak. I cry. I am reminded that my weakness is made perfect in His strength!!! I have been crying so much in this past month, almost as much as I did when Rob first died. Even now, tears come flooding my face down my cheeks as I write.

This emotional pain is agonizing... If it were not for your prayers, and the prayers of others who love me, I would really be in a most horrible place. Thank you for your prayers! I pray. I ask God to forgive me of my sins in asking why Rob chose to end his own life, and for my anger in that he chose to do so and leave such a financial mess. God is a merciful and gracious God. I keep reminding myself, that in His being merciful, gracious and loving toward Rob, He must be just as much toward me...

My heart cries

Today Saturday marks the day, tomorrow Sunday marks the date, a year ago, that Rob chose to end his life. This is the biggest and most emotional milestone that I have come across since that traumatic night of finding him hanging from the side of our home. For me, the heavenly Father's unfailing unfathomable love is the only thing that begins to soften the edges of this broken winged soul. As He touched my heart this morning, I was able to write.


My eyes rend unending tears
at missing the sight
of that gentle smile
My ears ring with longing
to hear jokes and quick wit
My mind cries in attempting
to empty itself
of unanswered questions
and unsaid goodbyes
My soul laments
in losing the bonds
of my marriage vows
My spirit soars at half mast
alone on this portion of its journey
My heart cries as I experience
the depths of grief and loss
of my dearly beloved husband

©  03-09-13 Kimberly Anne Wallace

Thank you Lord for your uplifting hand that directs my peace beyond all my understanding.