Learning to Rise

 There are days when the physical pain feels especially heavy.

Sometimes I get a glimpse of my old self. For a few precious moments, I remember what it feels like to move through life without constantly thinking about my body.

Then the pain returns.

My body gently reminds me that I am not healed yet.

In those moments, I find myself reaching for strength once again.

A strength I didn’t know I possessed.

A strength that seems to meet me every time I think I have reached the end of my own.

Years ago, I made a promise to myself.

No matter what life placed in my path, I would always rise.

I have kept that promise.

Not perfectly.

Not gracefully every day.

But faithfully.

That doesn’t mean it has been easy.

There have been days when I felt exhausted.

There were even moments when giving up seemed easier than taking one more step.

Yet somehow, each time, something within me quietly whispered,

“Rise.”

Not because I was fearless.

Not because I was certain everything would work out.

But because hope, however small, refused to leave me.

I have learned that rising doesn’t always look dramatic.

Sometimes rising is simply getting out of bed.

Sometimes it is choosing to pray instead of despair.

Sometimes it is believing that tomorrow might hold a little more light than today.

Perhaps rising isn’t something we do once.

Perhaps it is a lifelong practice.

A decision we make over and over again.

And if my life has taught me anything, it is this:

I may bend.

I may grieve.

I may grow weary.

But by the grace of God, I will continue to rise.

Not because life has been easy.

But because hope has always been stronger than despair.

The Nervous System

 I am learning that the many years of stress my body has endured may have profoundly affected my nervous system.

As I look back over my life, it isn’t difficult to understand why.

I think about my childhood and all the feelings I learned to silence because there was nowhere safe to take them.

I think about the years of watching my beloved daughter slowly disappear into addiction, carrying the helplessness and heartbreak that no parent ever wants to know.

I think about the people I have loved and lost.

My son moving away with my grandchildren.

My partner’s passing.

So many goodbyes.

So much letting go.

Then I think about myself.

For years, I kept asking more of my body.

Keep going.

Push harder.

Don’t stop.

There was always another responsibility, another crisis, another reason to ignore what my body was trying to tell me.

Perhaps my body wasn’t failing me.

Perhaps it was carrying more than any body should have to carry.

When I see my life through that lens, I find it easier to replace judgment with compassion.

My nervous system has spent decades trying to protect me.

It has stood watch through grief, trauma, loss, fear, and uncertainty.

No wonder it has struggled to find rest.

Today, I feel a new commitment growing within me.

I owe it to myself to be kind.

To be gentle.

To stop treating healing as another task to accomplish and begin treating it as an act of love.

Maybe this season isn’t asking me to push harder.

Maybe it is asking me to listen more closely.

To honor the body that has carried me through every chapter of my life.

And to give it something it has been longing for all along.

Rest.

Compassion.

Safety.

Healing.

Building Strength

 I continue to discover my strength every day.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

I look back over my life and wonder how I made it through so many difficult seasons.

The truth is, I became strong because I had no choice.

Life kept placing challenges in front of me, and each one asked something of me that I didn’t know I possessed.

Strength wasn’t something I set out to achieve.

It became my way of surviving.

The same is true of resilience.

There were moments when I could have given up.

Moments when grief, loss, trauma, or physical pain could have convinced me that I had reached my limit.

Yet somehow, I kept going.

Not because I was fearless.

But because something deep within me refused to quit.

Without strength and resilience, I might have crumbled.

But that was never the plan.

As I reflect on my life, I realize that strength has carried me this far.

Now I find myself wondering if this next season is asking something different of me.

Not to become stronger.

But to become softer.

To let strength walk hand in hand with gentleness.

To discover that courage isn’t only found in enduring hardship, but also in allowing myself to rest, to receive love, and to believe that I no longer have to carry every burden alone.

My strength brought me here.

Now perhaps it can become something even more beautiful.

Not armor.

But quiet confidence.

The kind of strength that no longer needs to prove itself because it already knows who it is.

Becoming Friends With Fear

 As I write these words, I can feel fear.

Not panic.

Not terror.

Just the quiet presence of fear sitting beside me.

I learned to be afraid as a child.

Fear became familiar.

It became a constant companion, teaching me to be careful, to stay small, to watch for danger, and to protect myself in whatever ways I could.

As I grew older, I found ways to avoid it.

I distracted myself.

I denied it.

I covered it up.

I tried to outthink it.

I tried to outrun it.

But none of those things truly worked.

Fear has a way of waiting patiently until we are willing to acknowledge it.

I am beginning to understand that fear isn’t something I have to fight.

The more I resist it, the louder it seems to become.

Perhaps fear isn’t asking to be defeated.

Perhaps it is asking to be understood.

So today, instead of pushing it away, I imagine sitting down beside it.

I ask it a different question.

Fear, what are you trying to teach me?

What are you hoping I will learn?

Maybe fear has spent all these years trying to protect a little girl who once had every reason to be afraid.

Maybe it has simply stayed on duty long after its job was over.

If that is true, then perhaps fear is not my enemy.

Perhaps it is an exhausted guardian that no longer realizes the danger has passed.

I don’t have to hate it.

I don’t have to obey it.

I can thank it for trying to protect me.

Then, with kindness, I can let it know that it doesn’t have to carry that responsibility anymore.

I am here now.

God is here now.

And together, we will teach that frightened little girl what fear never could.

That she is safe.

That she is loved.

And that courage isn’t the absence of fear.

Sometimes courage is simply taking fear by the hand and walking forward anyway.