There are some days when swears aren’t enough.
I stood in the shower, tears streaming down my face. The morning had already started off on a hard note, as I learned that a friend from my childhood had passed away. We first met when I was in middle school, when he and his brothers used to tease me as I tried to tan my pale skin in the backyard and I would respond with the rudest comments I could create about their anatomy. Both of us would grow up to find far better ways to treat people. He was only 55 – an amazing man who loved God and his family. And justlikethat, he was gone. With that ache freshly imprinted on my heart, I got the text.
“I don’t know if our marriage is salvageable.”
The long-time friends who had for years encouraged my husband and me to love each other well were now engaged in head-to-head conflict as their marriage crumbled under the weight of anger and deception. Covenant groaned like a tree limb on the verge of snapping in a storm.
And so I cried. And I screamed.
“I fucking HATE you, Satan. How dare you! Get your vicious hands OFF THIS FAMILY!”
Kill. Steal. Destroy. Those three words. Over and over again in my mind. The three words the enemy loves. The three words more vile than any swear could ever be.
And those words have been scribbled like graffiti on people all around me, defacing lives and relationships. Even the most upright, well-respected, always-have-their-heads-on-straight people are clinging to lies about what is good and what is noble and what is right. About who they are and what they are meant to be. I know it’s not a new thing; in Psalm 12, David calls it when he says
Quick, God, I need your helping hand!
The last decent person just went down,
All the friends I depended on gone.
Everyone talks in lie language… ~Psalm 12:1,2a
Some days, the weight of it all doesn’t get to me. But some days, like today, I want to grab my friends and say, “Look me in the eye – what the hell is wrong with you? You are so much more than this.” I want to shake and keep shaking, yelling, “WAKE UP. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE WAKE UP.” For those who call themselves Christ-followers. For those who don’t. For all who desperately need God but continue to reach out to anything but Him – even when they know better.
Yes, there are some days when swears aren’t enough. And on those days, this girl shows her battle scars in dark circles and trembling voice. This girl yells and screams and keeps praying because DAMN IT ALL, she will not let the enemy destroy those she loves. This girl cries big old ugly tears and honestly would rather hide than let you see her this way because she’s not sweetness and light and lovely words (yes, she battles the scribbled graffiti too).
And this girl clings to this promise:
The suffering won’t last forever. It won’t be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, He does. ~1 Peter 5:11
God is the final statement. The punctuation. The period. The exclamation point. The closing quote. No matter how many swears are written into the sentence of today, it ends with God.
God gets the last word.
I cling to the last word.
:::
How do you deal with the days when the swears are not enough?