I feel her bed, where she lay during the night, still warm with her sleep. Calculate the time. Perhaps twenty minutes since she left for work in the deep before dawn. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. And still I worry as she drives under the moon to a job more than an hour away. Today we’ll color Easter eggs without her. Do the egg hunt at church without her. Watch It’s the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown without her. And she is just one bough breaking. We have seven boughs.    

The mother in me came apart this week. A way to describe my breakdown. Too tired. Too scared. Too twisted tight. Wrapped round and round until I came unwound. 

Some women dream of tearing their clothes and screaming I’m done. I did it. My favorite jeans destroyed. My sweatshirt stained with blood and cowboy boots kicked a mile through the orchard. The shame comes in waves washing me to the cross where Jesus bore it all. All I can no longer take. All I can no longer make. How does a broken woman make it all go away as she makes dinner? Makes beds? Makes Easter memories for her children’s heads? 

I wanted to hug him. Really wanted to hug him. The man working in our orchard who weeks ago I turned my back on because he frightened me. His brokenness frightened me. The drugs ruining his teeth and tearing up his face and then I chased him in the orchard because I longed for his forgiveness. And I longed for Jesus’ love. His broken, bloody, beautiful love. Begging the Lord for mercy. My husband held me as I screamed for mercy in that orchard. 

How loud can a woman scream for mercy? Mercy for all I’ve been and all I am and all I long to be. Two scars. One from cancer. One from childhood. Fierce with fear. I saw these scars on my body and thought they were His wounds while freaking out. The Lord on my body. Suffering. Learning obedience. And by His stripes I beg for healing. I can’t heal myself. Can’t calm my fears. Can’t protect my boughs: these children the Lord granted us. But He can. He can. 

So many questions I feel too fragile to answer right now. I snapped. I’m sorry. People fail. All the time we fail each other and fail ourselves, but most of all we fail Christ. And His grace is enough. It’s enough for me and it’s enough for you and it’s enough for God. It all stops at the cross. Tomorrow it’s Easter. 

Because He died, I live. HE LIVES. We live.