This event took place in 2013
I was sitting in my chair mending the lace insets in my bras because I could not afford to buy new ones. Without warning, I burst into tears of frustration and anger. I’d always been frugal, but this? This was outrageous.
Seven months earlier, I retired from my twenty-five-year career, and I had every reason to expect a regular monthly income for the next decade based on the work I had done over those years. Two weeks later, my dad fell and broke his hip, and his days of independent living were over.
We had barely begun planning how to bring him home with us and hire help to care for him when just two weeks later, the unthinkable happened. My former employer declared bankruptcy. It soon became apparent there was no assurance of how much, if anything, we would receive in a settlement with the creditors.
At the same time, I was emerging from a season of deep grief after the deaths of my only living sibling, my mother, and my husband’s job loss at the church he had served for thirteen years. In the midst of yet another life-changing round of devastating news, initially, I did not express anger toward the company or even God. I was determined to maintain a peaceful, spiritually victorious demeanor.
That day, seven months later, when I broke down while mending my old bras, I began to see the peace and grace I had been exhibiting for what they really were, a way of denying my feelings about what had happened to us.
A few weeks later, I was at Goodwill. You were just never sure what treasure might be lurking among the displays. But now I was resentful because I was shopping there out of fiscal necessity. Rooting around in the pile in the Women’s Bin, I uncovered three new name-brand-still-in-the-boxes bras for $1.50 each, all my size.
I froze. As I stood there, I sensed God speaking to my soul: “I can take care of you in ways you never thought you’d need.
This was about more than God providing some new bras. It was the beginning of a long journey, learning to own my feelings of fear, doubt, despair, and anger, and trust God with emotions that didn’t feel “spiritual.”There would be a counselor and friends who walked with me through these emotions as I came to a place of learning to trust, doesn’t mean there is never fear. I discovered that my fear and anger can actually drive me to my faith. It was a long, painful process, but oh so worth it.
It was the first, but not the last time, I allowed myself to express negative emotions to God. The surprise to me was this: expressing to him what he already knew defused the intensity of my emotions. With time, I was more able to listen to him and what he might have to say. All of me is safe with all of him, even the seemingly negative parts of my life. This gives me the freedom to be real and to receive the real comfort he offers me, his beloved child.