Mourning in all the Wrong Ways

Fasting

Jesus said that we would not need to fast while the bridegroom was with us, but after He left. In fasting, we are to remember the presence of the Lord. Old Testament fasting was a symbol of mourning. In mourning, you rend your clothes and stop eating the food for your grief over sin or loss. I’ve done mourning in all the wrong ways.

My Broken Family

My dad was quick to anger. I didn’t know daddy’s were anything different, and I loved him so. However, I was afraid of his rage. When it was time to go to college, I was so ready. I wouldn’t have to listen to mom and dad fight anymore or be a part of the instability. It was my chance to run away to freedom from all the brokenness in my life, and I gladly took it.

But while I was away at college growing closer to God, my family was breaking even more.

My sister refused to go to school. Mom had her alone. Dad wouldn’t help. Mom and dad kept fighting. Dad fell deeper in sin.

I prayed.

I knew all about brokenness, but I didn’t yet understand why or the what for of pain.

Over the years, things got better with my sister, and worse with my parents. Finally, my mom could travel and be with dad as she didn’t have kids tying her down.

But a life not lived together doesn’t magically mesh when it does come together.

Broken Disgust

I prayed for all the broken things to be mended. For Dad’s porn addiction to end. For mom and dad to be whole again.

I was part way disgusted with all the brokenness. How could dad be so twisted up? I stood in judgment in the way that only a child who doesn’t know anything about hurting can do.

A codependent child thinks she has to be a fixing child, and there was nothing I could do to fix it or make momma and daddy better. There was no amount of peace I could give.

But God decided to take me down the Via Dolorosa of my own. Darkness. Hopelessness. Brokenness. And I thought about getting my own dark addiction to numb the pain.

Then one day, dad died of a broken heart. He had been on a job, eating and being merry, and walking with coworkers back to his room down the streets of New Orleans, when his heart could take no more.

Mourning in all the Wrong Ways

Recently, I told mom when daddy died I was glad. I wasn’t glad, but I was relieved. I’d been mourning and fasting while he was living, that by the time he died, my mourning was half over. I could release the heaviness of trying to fix all the broken things with mom and dad. I couldn’t do what only the Savior could do. Maybe I was like unshrunk cloth on an old garment or new wine in old wineskins making things worse, with my holier than thou judgment and lack of sight of the pain causing dad’s wounded heart.

I was not meant to mourn my dad before he left this earth. I was meant to walk the broken trenches of suffering and pain and flesh eating sin with him. I’ve done fasting and mourning in all the wrong ways.

I’ll never know how much I wounded dad’s heart. But I knew the kindness of the Lord when I asked Him all the whys and wherefores when my own pain came. Mourning comes with loss. He promises that blessed are the mourners for they will be comforted. You can read more about my search for answers about dad here.

This post is one in a 31 day series of posts called, “Broken into Beautiful.” You may read all the posts in this series by clicking the graphic below.