Not Alone

Last night, at one in the morning, my nine year old woke up with really sharp stomach pains. He came in to get me and I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was really hurting. (Note, this was right in between nightly baby feeding times.) I got up with him and sat with him on this little couch that we have upstairs. He was sobbing because it hurt so bad. I went through the normal litany of questions-

Do you feel like you are going to throw up? NO
Do you have to poop? NO
Where does it hurt? He pointed to the center of his stomach, right beneath his breast bone. (Ok, not his appendix)
I check his temperature- No fever.

In the meantime, he is writhing in pain, crying, saying, "Mommy, I just want it to stop hurting. Make it stop hurting."

I feel helpless. All I can think of is maybe it is gas, maybe it is heartburn, but if it does not stop, maybe we need to go to the emergency room. So I pray for him and then I give him two TUMS because then at least I am DOING something that will appear to him like I am helping him. I tell him to take deep breaths and to pull his knees to his chest. I rub his leg for a while until he pushes my hand away.

I understand. Sometimes you are so miserable that it hurts more when people touch you.

After about 40 minutes, he is still breathing deeply, tears rolling quietly down his face, but his eyes are closed. I start to stand up to grab a pillow that has fallen to the ground. He reaches out and grabs my arm. I say, "It''s okay honey. I won't leave you."
He relaxes.

Even though he does not want me to touch him and even though I am doing nothing to help him, he does not want to be alone.

Nobody does.

While I was laying there, I started thinking about an e-mail I received in response to my recent post titled,"In It With You" wherein a friend wrote that sometimes she "feels so alone." When I read that, it made me piping mad.

You may think that is a strange response- sad maybe, but mad? Yes, mad. It made me mad because it is a big fat lie that she is being told by the enemy of our souls. The lie isn't that she feels it. The truth is that she is not alone.

I am out to expose the lies we are told that make us feel alone. So here goes...

you are not alone if you have been abandoned.

you are not alone if you sent your child to preschool today in a dirty white shirt because you had one sick child, one newborn and one performing a special flag ceremony and you were just happy that he came in fully dressed and you didn't have to force him to get dressed so you could get out the door on time. Wasn't me! And that wasn't a run- on sentence either.

you are not alone if you have cancer.

you are not alone if you received a foreclosure notice on your house.

you are not alone if you are an angry mother.

you are not alone if you are watching your parent die.

you are not alone if you wholeheartedly believed something and then found it not to be true.

you are not alone if you fake it all the time.

you are not alone if you feel fat every day.

you are not alone if your children act like complete lunatics in public as if you have never taught them one thing in their lives.

you are not alone if you just want to sleep.

you are not alone if you fantasize about getting in your car and just driving away.

you are not alone if you can't pay your bills.

you are not alone if you don't want to talk to anyone.

you are not alone if you wish you just had one person who could really hear you.

you are not alone if you don't know how to be a friend.

you are not alone if you have a very sick child.

you are not alone if you feel like you do everything half-way and nothing in excellence.

you are not alone if you feel like a really crappy mother.

you are not alone if your life is not how you pictured it.

you are not alone if....................................................................you are alone.

All of these examples are either things I, or someone I know, has personally experienced. The thing is that there is always someone else out there who is going through or feeling something similar to you.

Even better, you are not alone "because our God, will never leave you, or forsake you." Hebrews 13:5 Please pay close attention to the word NEVER.

Note that it does not say, "I might leave you if you steal something, say something mean, do the worst possible thing you can think of, curse at me, or get really sick. But, otherwise, I'll be there."

Forsake means to renounce, turn away from, or abandon. You will not be left and you will not be abandoned.

Just as I would not leave my child crying, writhing in pain, neither will you be left alone in any circumstance. 

Feel free to leave your own, "you are not alone if...." either publicly or anonymously. Help me expose the lie.