Quicky Disclaimer: This one is really loooooooong and quite possibly a little ramblish (not a word...I know) but this is my little piece of self therapy....8)
She is lost, she tells herself that she is weak, and fragile and vulnerable. She sometimes insists that she is incapable of making big decisions all on her own. She convinces herself that majority rules is the best policy, perhaps so that she doesn’t have to take responsibility for her choices. She makes herself believe in things that couldn’t be true because sometimes it feels easier to believe a lie than to walk through the truth. She takes all the blame and holds accountability for too many things…..she shreds her own personal growth to lift ownership from other people. She is much too hard on herself sometimes….and sadly there are times when she looks at her own reflection with such disappointment…….as her eyes lean in closer to that girl in the mirror and whisper to her that she is a failure. She is angry….mostly at herself for not seeing all the things that seemed to be so clearly pointing in one direction. She’s loathes that she found herself in a place that she had vowed to never ever walk. She feels like a failure in mothering her children as she walked through the short period of her life where she unintentionally checked out of theirs. The rain storm in her own life was drowning her and she failed to see that perhaps they were feeling the rain just as much. She has cried as she felt the breaking happen and she has screamed out to God as she felt the sharp sting of her reality. She is bitter and jaded…unjustly sitting in this place where none of her own actions have earned her this seat. In her mind she dreams about slipping into the driver’s seat, driving away into the darkness and never coming back…..
BUT THAT WAS THEN....AND THIS IS NOW....
She is strong….and she knows it. She is wise….wise enough to make decisions all by herself without the weight of others having bearing on her choices. She is forgiving….and perhaps some would say that she forgives more than she should….but still she does. She has faith….in God…and in those who she forgives. She forgives when they haven’t earned it….in the hopes that they will show her that they deserve it. She stands firm in the accountability to which she has to take ownership of….and nothing more. She does not carry other people’s choices or consequences as her own. She sees things clearly for what they were and what they are. She acknowledges that not everyone will appreciate her approach but still she smiles while she draws her line in the sand and stands behind it. She feels confident in speaking out loud her own truth with full realization that she can’t control other people’s response to it. She is nicer than she should be sometimes…and knows that many times she offers a smile instead of a smack because at the end of the day kindness really does matter. Her heart is stronger than she dreamed it ever was and her spirit, though still nursing some tender wounds, will not be broken. She is witty and funny and smart. She has walked with more grace than she herself would have ever believed she was capable of, and though clueless at times, she is not oblivious. She is confident and patient and proud of herself. She sits proud of how far she has come over these passing days. All those months ago, when it felt as though every fiber of her being was shattering into a thousand pieces of broken glass…..and now here she sits….a mosaic in progress….not the same as the original piece, this is true….but being recreated into something new ….something that is so much more, and even she doesn’t know what the completed piece will look like, but she is certain….beyond certain that it will be amazing…as with all mosaics, it is sometimes in the flaws that you see the perfectly intricate design that makes it that much more beautiful. She understands now what it means to surrender to the things that you can not control. Inside she smiles in the knowing that it really is in the valleys that you grow. There are no walls of resistance built up around her like a fortress to keep her safe. She is optimistic and is able to realize that all things will go the way they are intended to go and that she has no control over that. She sees the something in the eyes of her reflection again….that little something that seemed to have dimmed and gone away for so many months….but has now returned….for a time it felt as though her wings had been clipped…confining her to this place and keeping all of her hopes and dreams far beyond her reach but now she feels the growth of her wings again. So timidly and slowly opening…certainly not fearless in the endeavor to take flight but someday……someday she knows they will be.... She clings to that tiny sliver of resilience that tells her that in the end no matter the road or the twists and turns along the way…that girl….this girl….is going to be just fine. After all this time…..she sees that she is a complete person all on her own….no one makes her who she is and nothing defines her…..no one is capable of building her to completeness or tearing her to rumble…..all she is and all she will be….is achieved by her and her alone. She closes her eyes at night with the awareness that tomorrow will come and she will do what she can just for that day..…and then she will do it again…and again….and again…She realizes now what took so long to understand….when you want to stop breathing….still you breathe….when you want to close your eyes and not wake up….still you rise and when the only thing you want to do is cry…still somewhere inside you…some part of you smiles…and in that tiny little smile buried somewhere in the crevices of your spirit…you see the glimmer of hope that reminds you that you never stay in the same place forever and that this moment like all before it will pass…..
Thank you to everyone who has loved us and prayed for us while we have been walking in the valley. This valley seems so long sometimes, but there is growth to be had and so we will keep moving forward in the hopes that we will rise up out of the valley one day, stronger and better than we were before.
“A bird does not sing because it has the answer, a bird sings because it has a song.”
