I have always believed, but I have not always followed. I have always believed, but I have not always felt. I have always believed, but I have not always believed in a God who is so detail-oriented that He would prepare me for heartbreak, and then carry me when my heart did shatter.

It could have begun ten years ago. Or maybe it started when I said the word "love".

While I was cleaning three nights ago, I found myself standing in the middle of my room holding a gift. A scarf. From the man I thought I would marry. He gave it to me three years ago. It was a gift from his travels. It is black and gold, woven delicately, exotic, soft, and warm. It is everything I believe in, beauty and function. It is the only thing left between us that is still functional. I wear it often, and it has become a mourning shroud. I wear it, I get compliments in it, I think of him, I miss him, I feel flashes of anger at him, then myself, then him, the flashes accelerate until I blush, my body feels the heat of deep pain, and then everything burns to ash and I am left with a hollow sadness.

As I stood there holding this gift, this tie to him, but also this tie to all the baggage and pain, I felt God telling me to hang it up on the nail above my bed. I did. I could not bear to see it hanging there; somehow it was easier to see it draped over a chair, in a heap on the floor resting easily on the little black dress I wriggled out of after a night out. It hurt to see it sterile and unused. I stared for a long moment, a moment pregnant with sadness, and just as the tears welled, He told me to pick up another scarf of a similar size, a gift from a dear friend, and hang it over the other scarf. "Cover it", He said. I did. Now I was crying. I stood on the end of my bed to reach and carefully arranged one gift scarf over THE gift scarf. I didn't understand why I had to do what I did, but I was obedient, largely because I had not energy to defy.

Later, candles lit, snow falling,  He said "because, I will cover you".