The Strength to Begin Again

I'm coming to learn that things happen in life that I have absolutely no control over.  Things that break your heart.  Things that tear your soul into a million pieces.  I am learning that in moments of great pain, I forget to breathe.  Maybe it's because, behind our masks of strength, we discover just how fragile we really are.

In this life, I've found myself in situation after situation, where I am required to be strong.  Not because I'm good at it and most certainly not because I want to, but only because I have no other alternative.  What would happen if I don't keep my "stuff" together?  What would happen if I allowed the pain to overcome me?  It makes me angry really how much strength is required of me.  In the midst of a recent break down, someone close to me said, "you have to be strong...too many people are depending on you."  Well...isn't that just GREAT!!!  Thank you universe for the broken heart then...I'll just put my mask back on and pretend life is cotton candy and rainbows.

That's bull.  I don't have to be strong right now.  I don't have to lie and tell people I'm okay.  I don't have to pretend what's happening is fair, or right, or just.  I have to accept what is.  I have to let go.  I have to move forward.  But strength is not to be found in me.  Rather, the Lord is indeed my strength.  The Lord goes before me to defend and protect me.  The Lord is working out great things on my behalf.  I just have to trust God.

I guess what I have come to learn the hard way, is just how vulnerable I can be when I let myself trust in other people.  I errored in trusting others more than I trusted God and now I've got skinned knees, a broken heart and a bruised soul.  Am a bit better?  Yup.  Am I miffed?  Yup.  Can I live there...no.  God is the parent picking me up, dusting me off, drying my tears and telling me not to quit trying.

No matter the heartache, never quit trying to love others.  It's going to bite you sometimes.  It's going to break you sometimes.  People you love will hurt you, abandon you and let you down.  But they are not your rock.

I posted the photo above because it's a smile in the storm.  That girl is hurting more than anyone will ever know.  But...God loves that girl more than anyone ever will and that's worth smiling about.  One day someone is going to love me the way God intends for me to be loved.  And someday, someone is going to want me to love them right back.  For now, I hold on to the truth that there is no man worth my heart or my tears aside from Christ and my son.

God willing...this heart will heal, I'll forget this pain, I'll forgive who caused it, and I'll love again.  Lord, help me to not be overcome with bitterness and a hardened heart.  Help me to be a woman who loves whether that love is accepted or rejected.  Help me to love myself enough to walk away from those who cannot love me as you have called them to.  Help me to love others better and to remember this pain so that I am never the cause of it to anyone else.  Amen.