Rubbling

The other day I heard Lauren Daigle’s Rebel Heart for the first time. Came on while I was in the shower, and I wasn’t really paying close attention. Then these words hit me “..this rebel heart belongs to You.”

Except that’s not what I heard. I heard that line as “…this rubble heart belongs to You.”

That imagery seemed so perfect. My heart as rubble. Crumbled. Broken. In pieces. I imagined sweeping up the dust of my heart and handing it over to God. “Do what you want with this mess, because it sure isn’t doing anything for me now,” I’d say.

I wanted to see what the rest of lyrics said, so I googled it. Maybe there were more wisdom nuggets in there. Turns out, it’s “rebel.” Rebel Heart is the name of the song. Oops. It’s a good song. But my heart isn’t rebelling, necessarily. It’s rubbling.

I remember my dad telling the story about seeing the construction of a new building. The facade included an enormous mosaic. My dad recalled his amazement at the workers opening brand new boxes of purple tile and proceeding to smash them into small pieces in order to be installed.

The final effect is striking, but it seemed such a shame to bust up perfectly good tiles.

A couple weeks ago I went to a parent meeting of the local homeschool group. We’ve hit our two-year anniversary of moving, and still we don’t have a lot of friend connections for the kids. It seemed like a good idea for me to attend this beginning-of-the year informational meeting.

I was wrong.

I have seen babies since losing Joseph. When I know they will be around, I can emotionally prepare ahead of time. When seeing them in the wild, it’s usually only briefly because I don’t get out much.

At this particular meeting, there were four babies, four months or younger. Four. Four beautiful babies. Who cried. Fussed. Cooed. And hiccupped. Oh, the hiccups! For an hour-and-a-half I had a front row seat to all the things that Joseph could be doing now, but never will.

I worked hard to tell myself to be cool. To not erupt in sobs as one mom told the group about what forms to file with the state and another went over some upcoming fieldtrips.

The only way to describe the feeling would be to say it’s like eating a lot of Taco Bell before a plane ride. The seatbelt light is on during takeoff, and you are begging your sphincter muscles to hold on just a little longer. You sing yourself a little song. You make up stories about the people around you. You focus on breathing. And then you pray to hold on for just ten more seconds. Five more seconds. Two more seconds, as the seatbelt light turns off, you attempt to both be chill and sprint down the aisle of the plane as if your pants aren’t in mortal danger.

The people at the meeting didn’t really know me. I went alone, hoping to make some connections. But I snuck in a little late after getting lost and sat alone at a fringe table in order to not disrupt things in progress. After the formal part, I just left. I couldn’t stay. I was crumbling, and there wasn’t a broom in sight. It wasn’t the aftereffects of Taco Bell I was hoping to outrun, but a flood of tears, snot, and gaspy crying. I made it to the parking lot before the tears hit, and into the car before the intensity ramped up.

I am unsure what to do with the all the rubble. At this stage, it seems a little like those perfectly good tiles from the mosaic. I am smashed. It hurts. It’s ugly. It makes no sense.

We try to avoid plastic where possible, so the kids use jelly jars as drinking glasses. Overall it works pretty well, but it does mean I end up sweeping up glass shards occasionally. Those broken glass chunks are unredeemable. Not only can they not be put back together, but it’s dangerous to miss even the smallest piece. Straight into the garbage they go.

I will continue to trust that my rubble is like that purple tile, not the glass shards. I continue to offer up the loss, the sadness, the brokenness, in my limited imperfect way. I will continue to trust that there is meaning, purpose in the reconstruction. And I will work to give over more of the rubble.

“This rubble heart belongs to You.” Thanks for the image, Lauren. Even if I didn’t get it quite right.