Spring Break for the Broken
The Peek Perspective on When Spring Break....Isn't Actually A Break
For families with kids in school, Spring Break elicits hopes of a break from the daily grind of early wakeup calls, packing lunches, and the school day hustle. Dreams of fun family vacations or relaxing staycations, staying up past normal bedtimes and enjoying slow mornings are the visions that dance in our minds. Spring weather finally arrives, and there is endless fun to be had. I hope your Spring Break is filled with those realities.
My social media feed has been filled with dreamy Parisian vacations, snowy escapes to the mountains, and tropical getaways galore! Disneyland, LegoLand, American Girl doll land and everything Spring-Break-land seems to be where the fun is at.
But for so many people I’m close to, Spring Break included more brokenness than a break from hard things.
One group text with my longtime friends included constant prayers and ongoing updates for a friend who spent her Spring Break in the hospital, alongside her teenage daughter who required an unexpected surgery. Another watched her husband get wheeled into the OR for surgery, that very same day. Yet another is learning to navigate life without her father earth side for the first time.
Life outside of that group text seems to be consistent with brokenness, as I spoke with another friend who had to say goodbye to her family’s longtime pet this week. Another dear friend of mine is anxiously awaiting the recovery of her father, who just underwent a bone marrow transplant to rid his body of cancer. And very tragically, another family friend is broken-hearted at the bedside of her young daughter in the ICU, as she fights for her very life. Prayers are powerful, but my thoughts and words and Door Dash gift cards aren’t enough to touch the pain they are all experiencing.
Spring Break doesn’t stop the brokenness of this life.
My own family had imagined a fun-filled local Spring Break, with many plans to host and connect with old friends. Nearly all of those plans got cancelled after a vicious stomach virus took us out in one fell swoop during the middle of the week.
I’m talking about 6 hours of nonstop violent vomiting, laying on the cold tile of my bathroom floor, and hearing the sounds of sickness echo through the house from my daughters, who were all sick at the same time. It was like someone dimmed the lights and flung open the curtains, and the orchestra of sickness began (completely off-key and out of tune). My husband was the unassuming conductor of our chaotic orchestra- rushing from room to room, emptying sick pails, tending to tears, and [hopefully] washing his hands like crazy.
My late night text to a few good friends and my family ended with the words, “Will someone text me tomorrow to make sure I’m still alive?!” That smooth sickness conductor, my husband, would be traveling for work the following day, and yours truly would be left with the aftermath of a dehydrated, achy, sickly family. After checking to make sure we were in fact still alive the next morning, my husband hit the road for his work trip on way too little sleep himself - but not before discovering my glasses, still laying on the floor right next to the toilet.
I didn’t even notice.
Now, our break was also suddenly broken…There would be no gathering with the Gaffners, celebrating with the the Gildons, activities with the Acklins, or play dates with the Pettys. It was just the Peeks, languishing on the couch together, attempting slow rehydration alongside way too much screen time, all the while dreading the mountain of laundry that had quite literally accumulated overnight.
Sometimes we can’t catch a break, even on a break….
Our family’s brokenness pales in comparison to all of the broken pieces that my above mentioned friends are trying to hold together. But nonetheless, we all share the feeling of brokenness on some level during this Break.
So if you’re broken too, I see you. If your Spring Break wasn’t a break at all, I feel you. The sooner we can see each other as broken people, all just walking around trying to carry these broken pieces, the more compassion we can have in this world.
The good news is, we don’t carry these pieces alone. We have each other. And we have a God who enters into our brokenness, shining a light in the darkness, and giving us hope in Jesus despite our circumstances.
Even on the most broken of Spring Breaks,
Dr. Peek
P.S. Even the most dreamy of Spring Break getaways can be filled with some level of real life brokenness…like my friend Jenna who shared this unfortunate and comically relatable experience over on Mom Who Works. Is Disneyland vomit more magical than my Fantasia-style orchestra sickness at home?!