Becoming Brave: Part 11- My Silent Fortress

Updated: Aug 13, 2020

Becoming Brave

No. 11

My Silent Fortress

Bo is a beautiful piece of my life. But only a piece. There is another piece, a very important piece to me. You don't have to know me well to have heard about my cousins. My foster-siblings. Only little children, they lived with us several years and I adored them with all of my being.

But then in a heartbeat they were gone.

Swept suddenly into a broken world, all I could do was stand and watch as they cried and waved goodbye and disappeared.

(In other words they were given back to their parent.)

There was so much I didn't know, I didn't understand, I didn't see. All I knew was that I had a world, a calling, a family one minute, and then they were pulled away to a scary world where I couldn't follow. And I knew that somehow God was still perfectly good. That somehow this mess would all be okay. I just wished (I thought) I knew how long the pain would last before it'd all work out.

[Maybe I'll write about it someday. But not yet, it's... so much. And all for another time.]

I stumbled like a drunkard out toward the field clutching a Bible to my chest because that's all I knew to do for comfort.

Bo is the type of boy that is far more interested in his grain than my hugs and kisses. Those are tolerable, but often he loses interest in affection and wanders away.

Not today. Good Lord, to his credit, not today.

He stood near the fence, right where I needed him to be.

"They're gone," I choke out.

Hazel eyes staring back at me unblinking.

"They're gone."

A step forward and a nuzzling, soft nose presses my shoulder...

I shake my head with a final, "They're gone. Oh God! Bo, they're gone. And they're not..." I refused to finish the sentence, biting my lip hard. Bo stood there. He kept his face near mine and did not pull away. He knew I needed him.

And I didn't think I could ever be more in love with him.