My heart sank as I scrutinized the drawing in my lap. “Lord, can I be any more broken?” This soul-care retreat should have been a recipe for rejuvenation. Instead, there I sat, beyond mending, like an egg’s shattered shell.

“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them.” Jonah 2:8 (NIV)

Wrestling the downward pull of the water, I propelled myself upward until my head broke the surface. Gasping for air and shaking, I doggy paddled until I reached the mossy bank of the swimming hole.

Racked with fear, I hunkered down behind the boarded-up jalousie windows of my childhood home, longing for the chaos swirling outside to relent. During hurricane season in South Florida, this repeated event was necessary to ride out the storms that threatened our coastal community with regularity.

And now, during this long season of the global pandemic, I once again find myself hunkered down, longing for peace to settle in places disrupted by this unwelcome global storm. Who knew it would all feel so much like a devastating hurricane, disrupting all sense of normalcy and stripping peace from even the most settled soul?

There is nothing quite like clothing to bring a grown woman to her knees. A simple closet-moving project had left me on the ground, clutching a cold metal tape measure to my chest.