It was Easter this past Sunday. Three years ago on Easter Sunday we were days into our grief and loss journey with Faith. Two years ago on Easter Sunday we celebrated her first birth day. We had gone away that weekend for some time just as a family to mourn her and celebrate her.Holidays are hard for me. Various reasons, various levels of hard. But holidays are hard for me.
Sunday was no different. I got myself up, I got myself ready, I got my family to church. We sat down and I looked up at the stage, the cross, the fellow staffers all doing their thing all around me, and I felt my throat constrict. I felt the tears starting to burn, I felt my chest starting to tighten. The tears began to fall.
It had been a long week. A good week, a hard week, but a long week.
I had celebrated Faith and had completed my long run in her honor and memory. I had intentionally faced the memories, the emotions, the reality. I had purposely not let myself slip into numbing mode. I allowed the emotions, the feelings, the overwhelm to wash over me, prick me, poke me, hurt me, hold me, cradle me, overtake me.
It's so easy to build up that wall around us, to not allow ourselves to feel, to admit, to hurt, to ache, to have to really look within, reach into, delve deep. Life is easier when we can put on a pasty smile and say everything is good, everything is fine, everything is easy-peasy.
But that really doesn't make life easier in the long run, and life surely isn't easy-peasy. Running from ourselves, and our crazy, and our hurts is not always the best solution. It may be the easiest answer for a short amount of time, yes. But intentionally traveling through life being as in tune and as in touch with what you are really thinking, feeling, processing, dealing with, ultimately in the end is so much more rewarding, and gratifying, and healthy... not just for ourselves, but for all through around us.
As I sat in that pew on Sunday, my eyes blurry with tears and running mascara, I was grateful for that place, that moment, that reality. I was grateful for the opportunity to get to come to work there every day, to get to work with the fellow staffers that I do every day. I was grateful that I chose to feel, chose to intentionally heal. And, frankly, I was physically and emotionally exhausted and left yet again spiritually confused.
Overall I know this journey we're on is for the greater good. God chose us for a reason, for a purpose. God gave us our Faith to help us find our faith, to help us grow, change, model, and share. But it's in defining moments and weeks like this one that there still that part of me that wants to know WHY?!? Why us, why our daughter, why God, why?!? I want to be angry, I want to harbor bitterness, I want to walk away from God and the church and not forgive, not feel, and simply forget. But I don't, I won't, I can't. But yes, there are days I still want to, I can't lie.
We traveled through the remainder of the day and the celebrations. The family, the food, the conversations, the laughter, and a few more tears. Overall it was a good day, a great day, an exhausting day. And as I climbed into bed that night my eyes hurt.
My eyes ached, burned, and I thought the words - "My eyes feel like sandpaper right now." And in my mind the imagery of sandpaper instantly led me to the word grit.
Grit is one of those words you rarely think about, and yet it's a word I really like. Grit by definition is "small, loose particles of stone or sand." It's harsh, grating, irritating, annoying, exhausting, negative.
But that wasn't the grit I kept thinking about. I kept thinking about the other definition of grit "courage and resolve; strength of character." And I couldn't help but connect and be in awe of how those two actually completely intertwine together within me.
Every time I blinked my eyes burned, sandpaper under my eyelids from my day of crying. My eyes hurt, they were irritated and harsh from a day, a week, a season of exhaustion, a season of intentionally not numbing when I most wanted too, when it would be most easy. No, I chose to do something purposeful and hard, something I had to daily think about, daily train for, and eventually endure through. I chose to celebrate the hard way, by feeling and experiencing fully, by not allowing myself to build up that wall and put on that fake smile. It's ok to not be ok, and I also celebrated that very simply, yet huge concept this week, this bittersweet Faith week.
It's been a long journey, a heavy season of hard for me, but I have stood up time and again with courage and resolve, I have allowed myself to brush myself off over and over, building my strength of character rather than tearing me down and leaving me lost and alone.
I do still fall down. I do still feel worthless and lost at times. I do still struggle and hurt and question. And the grit in my eyes from the tears that I've cried has also been the grit in my soul, in my heart, in my mind that is continuing to grow my courage, my resolve, my strength, my character, my passion, my perseverance.
Grit. Hustle. Passion. Perseverance. Grit. Courage. Resolve. Strength.
Grit. Yes. Grit. Get up girl and just keep doing the next right thing. Grit.
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