Broken Open

We finally received my author copies of the book two weeks after it hit Amazon. Oh Sitka and your quaintly slow mail delivery service…

 It was very strange to see and hear of people receiving their books before I ever laid eyes on it. I tamped down fears of doubt daily. But lots of folks took selfies holding the book, which I loved, so here is our own! Just seeing the smiling faces of so many friends and loved ones has been awesome, but also seeing their excitement for the book itself and hearing so many encouraging words has been a huge blessing.

 Still, I feel emotionally naked to see the book in so many hands. To have my whole, messy, sad life and faith journey out there for all to see is particularly vulnerable. But it is honestly the only way I could’ve written it, raw and broken.

 I read this beautiful passage recently, that made sense to me. That meaning in life is sometimes found in the brokenness: 

“The heart, the round sphere of your being. Let your heart be broken.

Allow, expect, look forward to it. The life that you have so carefully protected and cared for. Broken, cracked, rent in two. Heartbreakingly, your heart breaks, and in the two halves, rocking on the table, is revealed rich earth. Moist, dark soil, ready for new life to begin.”

(Tina Davidson Let Your Heart Be Broken: Life and Music from a Classical

Composer)

 My life soil right now feels loamy and ready. The breaking open of my heart in these last years allowed the words my soul needed to be written. The raw heartbreak gave me a voice.  

Now those words are spilled out into the world in this book, and although it feels incredibly vulnerable, I’m so at peace. It’s like my journey with Ben was something I couldn’t make sense of for so long, always so hard and unfair and scary. But the writing of the story, with God’s nudging and in the only way I knew how, is making sense of it. I can’t care that it’s all out there. What’s done is done. The story doesn’t just belong to me anymore. Somehow there is freedom in that surrender.  

 Yes, it’s been a wildly emotional couple of weeks since the book hit Amazon and word got out. My heart is full…giddy and ready for what’s next, shifting from angst to acceptance with gratitude. Ben was always worried that he was doing “nothing” with his life. To the contrary, his life, his quiet genuine presence, and his resilience through much hardship, touched so many people. We are getting flooded with the outpouring of people’s love for him. And us. And the book. It’s quite remarkable. 

The outpouring is drenching the rich soil for whatever is next.