NINE years ago we were going through a very tough time, but in context it was just another season in a 20-year journey of becoming for me.
That 20-year journey started with the loss of my family as we knew it in September 2003. This broke me for months but was the cause of the rebuilding of me for the better. This was followed by burnout in 2005, clinical depression and midlife crisis in 2007, and then an extended period of acute stress that became chronic, and then we lost our son Nathanael to stillbirth in 2014 (picture of me with him on the day of his funeral). 2016 to May this year were some of the hardest years, but always sprinkled with many reasons to be grateful.
We weren’t to know it at that time, when we lost Nathanael, but we were only a bit over fifty percent the way through the trial of twenty years (2003-2023) yet that’s the truth of it.
It isn’t helpful to go into all of it it in graphic detail unless to say that there are others I’m journeying with right now (more than a few) who are either part the way through their hellish reality or are only just beginning.
It does not help to attribute judgement — but when we are going through hell, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, we simply must keep going!
Some of these people are doing it tougher than I had it. It is astonishing that they keep waking up in their nightmare yet keep agreeing with themselves and their loved ones to do their best. They are nothing short of inspiring! And they will make it out of their respective hell.
That tug of faith keeps us facing each day knowing somehow it won’t always be the way it is right now. Our reality defies this faith, however, but it’s faith that helps us insist on a hope we do not yet see. Only by faith can we continue to ‘show up’ when broken. The faith of raw courage.
I want to encourage those on the toughest of journeys right now — those who are not there yet, especially those questioning their method or even their existence. Keep going. You will get there, and it will be even more beautiful than you dare to imagine right now as trudge through the mire. Belief will get you all the way home.
The title to this little article is part of a Bible verse: “Do not grow weary in doing good, for you will reap a harvest of blessing if you do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9).
It’s a life-saving verse for some in their season of anguish that they cannot change. For those of us who cannot relate, kindness, acknowledgement, and understanding go a long way. Yet, if we can’t relate, we are an anachronism for those who have lost more than some will ever know.
May we go gently with those in our midst who are struggling,
and may those who endure trials right now be gentle with themselves.
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