Never. I would never have imagined that at almost eleven months after being a part of a horrendous accident with a miraculously good ending (see the about page for details) that I would still be dealing the trauma. Every. Single. Day.
Here’s a glimpse into my real life Narnia.
“Like Narnia, beautiful and scary.” That’s how one of my friends described how things look outside around here in a conversation with me on Christmas Eve. We’d had an ice storm here over the previous weekend and the weather was so severe that my husband cancelled our church services on December 22nd. He doesn’t do that easily. In fact, he’s never done that before – ever!
In the afternoon on Christmas day, Dan and I went over to the Frankford Island and took some pictures of the ice and snow. Some of those pictures will appear in this post.
Winter is hard this year. As I was thinking about writing this particular post, I knew I wanted to include some pictures and so I suggested going for a walk to shoot pictures to Dan. However, when the time came for the walk, we took the car (at my request) and drove a short distance (easily walked normally), to get to the place to take pictures. Once we arrived, we got out of the car, walked around for a couple of minutes and then I was back in the car waiting for Dan to finish taking the pictures – that I had asked him to take.
On December 22nd, at the end of the ice storm, after being stuck in the house for a couple of days, Dan suggested we go for a walk. I made it around the outside loop of our subdivision once before retreating home to the warmth and safety of being inside.
But the worst day was our first snow fall this year. It happened on a Wednesday. That evening, we headed to church and I put on my blue coat for the first time this winter. I wore my blue coat to church in February on the night of the river accident. Then, on the way to church, we picked up a friend of our two daughters, Jade. Jade was with us on the night of the river accident. As we drove across the bridge in Frankford, I looked at the church at the edge of the river and I began to panic. I was so close to jumping out of the car. Ok, maybe not literally jumping out of the car while it was moving, but it was the first time in months that being on a bridge in a car had freaked me out, and I really wanted out of the car as quickly as possible. That one was a bad reaction and it took me quite awhile to calm back down.
I am not stuck in the house, unable to get out. I am not afraid of being outside. I like snow and have always enjoyed winter. But right now, I don’t want to be cold and I really don’t want to be more than a moment away from somewhere where I can get warm.
While it’s beautiful outside like Narnia, it’s also scary outside like Narnia.
On Boxing Day, I was on the verge of tears with a monster sized lump in my throat as we drove on the 401 and went past an overturned vehicle in the ditch. Scary stuff happens in the winter.
Logic and reasoning help manage reactions to a point, but the emotions and residual fear that have been a part of my life since February 2013 sometimes have no interest in logic or reason. I’m learning not to fight with the illogical emotions and unreasonable fear as I have discovered they are incredibly stubborn in that the more logic and reason I employ to counter the illogical emotions and unreasonable fear, the more illogical and unreasonable they become. Whereas, I have found that if I don’t fight the emotion and fear, and instead just let them be, I can slowly and carefully make my way through them and get back to the place where logic and reason work.
At least, that’s what was working until it started snowing.
The trips away from logic and reason were getting shorter, were much more manageable and were occurring less and less all the time. However, that changed with the first snowfall this fall and there are now times when strategies and coping methods are simply words with no meaning and while I have learned that struggling and fighting against the emotion and fear is futile, I also don’t want to give in to them too much out of fear of never getting back to the place where logic and reason dwell.
Contrary to the fictional place called Narnia, this place where I am is real and there is no magical wardrobe to provide an escape from here.
However, there are some similarities. There’s no lion named Aslan, but there is the Lion of Judah (Revelation 5:5) and just as Aslan gave Peter a sword and a shield as gifts, my lion has given me a sword of His word and a shield of faith (Ephesians 6:16-17). He is always with me, He never leaves me and He fights for me when I’m not able.
The stories from Narnia also show that good triumphs over evil and that is true where I am as well. There are lessons and truths to be learned where I am just as there were lessons and truths for the children in Narnia to learn.
So yes, outside here in Frankford it is like Narnia, beautiful and scary. But I have got my lion, my sword and my shield and maybe once I have learned whatever it is I’m supposed to learn, and discover all that He has planned for me to discover through this, then the scary will disappear and all that will be left is beautiful.
Hopefully, somewhere through the rambling today, someone will be blessed.
