Yesterday was rough.
Okay, I'm not talking like going without food for the whole day, bathing in dirty water, living in a shoebox kind of rough. Those Compassion Bloggers sure now how to offer perspective.
I'm just talking about the sitting in your boss/mentor/supervisor's office at the end of the day, when rather abruptly the tears being cascading down your face because you've been trying to hold it all together and do it all by yourself but you just can't anymore kind of rough.
How ironic that God created the most rewarding things in life to be wrought with challenge. With difficulty. With moments of heartbreak and loss and failure. None of which have I ever experienced so deeply that I'd say I'm on the other side of it all. Seasoned, if you will. You don't get to say that until your actually older and actually wiser. Neither of which, am I.
I remembered yesterday that I was only a mere twenty-four and twenty days away from turning just a mere twenty-five. I can't have it all together and I don't have to keep making excuses for when I don't. Or hide the fact that I don't.
Take for instance the season I was in just two months ago when you probably noticed my blog entries took a different tone. More serious in nature and a little wounded. Because I was. Rather significantly by someone I thought was a friend. And I moved on from that because, as I hoped to point out, God was very present in that time (and still is) and I was graciously put back together. But one offhand comment about the depressing nature of my posts and I shut off. Somehow my message of being a person trying to find joy in the difficulty apparently wasn't getting across, or so I believed.
But yesterday, I (unwillingly at first and then involuntarily at last) poured my heart and mind out to the person who makes the biggest difference in my worklife, and when he didn't respond with disgust, with a reprimand, or with shock... but with relief, I remembered again why weakness is valuable. I remembered again that I am not unshakable, nor do I have to pretend to be.
My pride lies not in my ability to have it all together, because Lord knows I know I don't. Rather, it's in my inability to ask for help when I need it or to share when I'm struggling, which is why the community of women I spend my Wednesday nights with has been so amazing. But on an average day, I'm not always so transparent and not necessarily because I don't want to be but because there's that part of me that says "be strong, be strong, be strong" when the only way to do that really, is to be weak.
So out of that roughness, a gem was rediscovered.
And it's not like I got it, even then.
It took a night of different sorts of therapy... blaring music on the way home, being with Cliff, greasy fish n' chips at the local pub, stopping at Ben & Jerry's for Chocolate Therapy ice cream, window browsing that turned into jacket purchasing, and design time on a project for Mom... to temper that feeling of bottomed-out-ness that came with the close of yesterday's workday.
I can't even begin to tell you how different today has been.
Or even what tomorrow may look like on my mental and emotional landscape.
But man, it feels good to be weak.
Okay, I'm not talking like going without food for the whole day, bathing in dirty water, living in a shoebox kind of rough. Those Compassion Bloggers sure now how to offer perspective.
I'm just talking about the sitting in your boss/mentor/supervisor's office at the end of the day, when rather abruptly the tears being cascading down your face because you've been trying to hold it all together and do it all by yourself but you just can't anymore kind of rough.
How ironic that God created the most rewarding things in life to be wrought with challenge. With difficulty. With moments of heartbreak and loss and failure. None of which have I ever experienced so deeply that I'd say I'm on the other side of it all. Seasoned, if you will. You don't get to say that until your actually older and actually wiser. Neither of which, am I.
I remembered yesterday that I was only a mere twenty-four and twenty days away from turning just a mere twenty-five. I can't have it all together and I don't have to keep making excuses for when I don't. Or hide the fact that I don't.
Take for instance the season I was in just two months ago when you probably noticed my blog entries took a different tone. More serious in nature and a little wounded. Because I was. Rather significantly by someone I thought was a friend. And I moved on from that because, as I hoped to point out, God was very present in that time (and still is) and I was graciously put back together. But one offhand comment about the depressing nature of my posts and I shut off. Somehow my message of being a person trying to find joy in the difficulty apparently wasn't getting across, or so I believed.
But yesterday, I (unwillingly at first and then involuntarily at last) poured my heart and mind out to the person who makes the biggest difference in my worklife, and when he didn't respond with disgust, with a reprimand, or with shock... but with relief, I remembered again why weakness is valuable. I remembered again that I am not unshakable, nor do I have to pretend to be.
My pride lies not in my ability to have it all together, because Lord knows I know I don't. Rather, it's in my inability to ask for help when I need it or to share when I'm struggling, which is why the community of women I spend my Wednesday nights with has been so amazing. But on an average day, I'm not always so transparent and not necessarily because I don't want to be but because there's that part of me that says "be strong, be strong, be strong" when the only way to do that really, is to be weak.
So out of that roughness, a gem was rediscovered.
And it's not like I got it, even then.
It took a night of different sorts of therapy... blaring music on the way home, being with Cliff, greasy fish n' chips at the local pub, stopping at Ben & Jerry's for Chocolate Therapy ice cream, window browsing that turned into jacket purchasing, and design time on a project for Mom... to temper that feeling of bottomed-out-ness that came with the close of yesterday's workday.
I can't even begin to tell you how different today has been.
Or even what tomorrow may look like on my mental and emotional landscape.
But man, it feels good to be weak.
2 comments:
these are the posts i know and love. thanks for your transparency.
I'm giving you a big hug... can you feel it? ;-)
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