i am not brave

I am not brave, not by myself.  I didn’t choose this. I do this because I have to.  

There is so much I don’t know, but I do know that everything always works for good. His good is not in earthly terms.  I know impossible things happen. I also know impossible good doesn’t always happen on our time or in our terms.

I am a parent to 2 girls earthside, 1 in heaven, expecting a baby with an uncertain future, and a wife to the only person I know who claims my same reality.  I pour myself into all of these roles, I strive to maintain my sanity, I stay as strong as I can. I try and look at things small because observing everything at once is too much.  Yet, taking life one moment at a time is easy to recite and hard to put into practice.

As long as I am being honest, going through all of this again was the thing I feared most: to measure time in weeks, to define milestones by appointments and benchmarks that keep changing, to settle on, “We will have to wait until he gets here to know more.”

My baby could live.  My baby could die. I’m back in the place I was before, but I am not the person I was last time.  As much as it hurts, I know I will make it through.

I may give off the impression that I am composed, but I am walking with a shield, one you can’t see.  I’m taking small steps, adding them up, following this rocky path I didn’t choose as obediently as I can.  I am thirsty for relief; despite the circumstance, relief will come.

I seek to stand up for what is right in this broken world.  I am working to store up grace in the eternal. If you see me and think I am brave, know this: I am weak, but He is strong. 

I am not walking bravely; I am being carried.  

And although my story isn’t yours, I bet that at some point, you have had sadness rip your heart open too.  Life has likely been harsh on your soul in a way you didn’t deserve. I know there is some event you wish you could have skipped, an affliction that stole a part of you, a hurt you didn’t deserve, someone you lost too soon.  

Maybe your losses are numerous; perhaps they could fill pages.  Maybe your struggles stack up and fuel a bitter fire that simmers silently.   The same as joy, grief is a terrible yet constant guarantee in life. And it’s really tough to decipher what shakes us more: the loss of the one we loved from this world, or the death of our own perceived security in the mess that remains.

I didn’t plan to become a voice for the hurting, I never meant to be vulnerable out loud; this all found me.  And in it all, I want to say with absolute conviction that the One who carries me can shield you too. He has room for us both.   

I am not doing this by choice, rather chance.  If it seems like I am making the right choices in the face of fear, I am doing so because I have faith in a greater purpose for it all.  I am walking this road this way out of obedience, and I guess I just thought I should say something.

I am not brave, not by myself.