When Even the Small Things Break You

 “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?” — Psalm 13:1

Today wasn’t supposed to break me. It was supposed to be simple. Take #3 and #4 to see Santa Claus. Smile for a picture. Make a memory I could cling to on the nights when the loneliness eats the edges of my sanity. But nothing in my life is simple anymore. Not even joy.

My day started at 6:30 a.m. at the church, running on barely three hours of sleep because my body is chained to late-night closing shifts. I woke up feeling like I’d been scraped off the pavement, but people were counting on me, so I dragged myself in. I always drag myself in.

Everything went fine at church. No disasters. No chaos. Just the usual quiet grind. Then the pastor asked if I could run to Costco with him for supplies. Sure. Why not. I say yes even when my soul is running on empty.

And while I’m standing in a warehouse full of oversized Christmas crap, my phone buzzes. It’s #2 telling me she can’t help me with the Santa trip anymore. Her mother—my ex—suddenly decided that #1 should take the kids instead. The same #1 who won’t speak to me. The same kid I pray for every night while wondering if they’ve already written me off entirely.

I called my ex. She hung up on me.

No explanation. No discussion. Just a brick wall. And #2 is stuck in the middle, relaying orders she didn’t ask to deliver, apologizing for things she didn’t cause. My kids shouldn’t have to carry messages like that. They shouldn’t have to be mediators in a war I never wanted.

I kept unloading Costco boxes at the church like a robot, nodding along to conversations I wasn’t in. I helped make pledge cards for a capital campaign while trying not to crumble in front of anybody. I smiled. I nodded. I swallowed the pain. I’m getting good at that part.

After Cadets, #2 texted again: #1 never took them to see Santa. So nobody took them. Not her. Not me. No Santa picture. No memory. Just another little piece of fatherhood that slipped through my fingers while I was out here trying to work, trying to survive, trying to hold it all together.

Tomorrow won’t work for her. Tomorrow won’t work for me either. Sunday’s out too. So that’s that. Another missed moment. Another small heartbreak piled on top of the big ones.

And somewhere inside me, something is starting to quietly scream.

There are moments where the exhaustion morphs into paranoia—this creeping lie that everyone is against me. I know it’s not true, but when you keep getting knocked down, even shadows start to look like enemies.

Yesterday I worked a warehouse shift from 8 to 3, bussed home, and clocked into Wendy’s at 5. I worked until 12:30 a.m., crawled into bed, then hauled myself to church by 9:30. I fell asleep in the middle of the service. My pastor is gracious, but I still felt like a failure—some broken man slumped in a pew, trying to pretend he’s okay.

Then tonight at work I couldn’t focus. My hands felt heavy. My brain felt like wet sand. I kept thinking about #3 and #4, and the Santa picture we never got to take. I kept thinking about the silence from my ex. The way she ignores every call, every message, every attempt I make to understand what’s happening.

I feel like I’m shouting into a void.

I’ve reached out to people. I’ve tried. But everyone has their own lives, their own limits, their own boundaries. I get that. I don’t blame them. But it still leaves me sitting here with this crushing feeling that no one understands. And even fewer care.

Right now it feels like God is silent too.

Maybe that’s why the only verse that feels honest tonight is David’s cry:

“How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?”

Because that’s where I am—stuck in the waiting, stuck in the silence, stuck in the ache.

And all I can do is keep breathing and hope that somewhere, somehow, the next chapter doesn’t hurt as much as this one.

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