Shame on Me

As I watched my four year old son run up the stairs in front of me, his little calves flexing as he bounded up with all the energy of a playful puppy, my mind went to a friend whose son is in a wheelchair.  He will never bound up stairs in front of her - at least not this side of heaven.  I thought of all of the ways in which life doesn't go according to plan.  Of friends whose babies didn't make it past their first day.  Of friends whose babies survived but have difficulties that have changed the trajectory of parenthood forever.  Of friends who have lost their mothers entirely too soon and have had to cling to childhood memories more fiercely than the rest of us.  I thought of all of the many ways in which we experience loss and grief and disappointment.

And then I thought of divorce.

Divorce - especially in the Christian community - is it's own unique brand of loss.  If you peel back all of the layers of emotions surrounding divorce, what you'll find at the core is shame.  Brene Brown defines shame as "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection."  Unworthy.

The unique pain that comes with the loss of a marriage is the intense feeling of shame in the midst of crisis.  There you are - in the midst of the most painful experience of your life - feeling like you've failed at the most important endeavor of your life - feeling like the rug of life has been yanked out from under you - reeling from the loss of identity - wondering if you'll ever smile again - and then being blamed for being in crisis.  Blamed for not trying hard enough.  Blamed for not being able to make it last.  Asked to try harder, to be braver.  One of the most painful parts of my divorce was having a long-time friend urge me to think of my children - the subtext being that the only way to be a good mother was to remain in my marriage.  I was devastated by her admonition.  I heard rumors about myself - I had started "going to bars," I had been unfaithful, I wasn't mentally stable.  All presumably an effort to make sense of the dissolution of something that had seemed from the outside to be going well.  It's easier for people to have something concrete to point to than to ask themselves if things are perhaps different than how they appear.  It's safer and more comfortable to assume that someone has gone off the deep end than to wonder if it's possible that this same fate could come to you despite all of your best efforts.  

Shame.  Insult to injury.  We would never blame someone for having a child in a wheelchair or for losing a parent, but we're comfortable questioning the character of someone who is losing a marriage.  Here's the thing I would like everyone to understand - no one is more devastated by the ending of a marriage than the people in that marriage.  No one has tried harder or poured more energy into that relationship.  You cannot point to Facebook posts as evidence that this thing that is ending was what it appeared to be on social media.  I promise you that the person best equipped to determine the health of a relationship is the one who is living it.  The details surrounding the ending of a marriage are not for public consumption.  But it would be so much easier on the person in crisis if the loss didn't have to be justified.  If people would trust that you have exhausted all possible resources and aren't simply treating your marriage as something that's disposable.  If people would realize that you actually ARE thinking of your children as you navigate this minefield.    

Let me stop right here and tell you that I am one of the lucky ones.  

The overwhelming majority of the people in my life were amazing and supportive and loving during this time in my life.  No one told me "God hates divorce."  Instead, they left toilet paper and goat cheese and a bottle of wine on my porch.  They invited me to join their book club.  They brought treats for my children for each holiday and special occasion for an entire year.  They showed up on my porch with Twelve Days of Christmas presents for my children.  They sent money so that I could buy presents for my children that first Christmas.  They sent ornaments and Christmas decorations and even a tree.  Someone covered my December rent - I still don't know who.  They invited me to their family dinner when I didn't have my children.  They let me sit on their couch and stayed up late helping me hash out the details surrounding the ending of my marriage.  They brought me breakfast in bed.  They recruited women I had never even met to send me cards of encouragement and notes telling me that I WAS worthy of love.  They brought grocery gift cards before my job started to help me bridge the gap.  They bought me appliances so I could wash our clothes and keep our food cold.  They took me shopping for razor blades and wooden spoons and throw pillows and silverware.  They brought over furniture they were no longer using.  They showed up on my porch with a paper sack of earrings because they heard I didn't own any jewelry.  They took me shopping so I could pick out my own earrings.  They took me shopping so I could buy my children new school clothes.  They took me to breakfast when I was lonely.  They made music with me to help me process.  They painted canvases to help me decorate my new home.  They flew me out to swim in the ocean and ride on zip lines and talk nonstop for three days.  They tirelessly responded to frantic text messages as I tried to come to terms with this new version of my life.  They cried with me as I missed my children and grieved the time I will lose of their already brief childhoods.  They kept including me in old traditions even though I was only half of the couple the traditions were forged with.  They held out hope for me when I couldn't feel hope.  They kept showing up over and over and over in a million different ways.  

They were my lazy river - the steady stream of love that carried me along when I was too tired to keep swimming, that allowed me to lean back and trust that God was carrying me through to a new land flowing with milk and honey.  They helped me trust that Egypt was behind me, that this desert wandering did not mean that God had forsaken me, that the promises of God were meant for me still.

All I can do is cry with gratitude when I think of these acts of kindness.  This is the model of how to walk someone through a divorce.  Just keep showing up.  Remind this person that they are worthy.  Be the hands and feet of Christ.  

I have friends who have endured this same loss and who have not been met with the hospitality I experienced from my friends and family.  Friends who have been told that God hates divorce instead of being brought breakfast in bed.  Who have had shame heaped further on their heads in the midst of this already painful and disorienting time.  I confess that, before I lived it, I used to sit in the judgment seat myself.  I used to hear that that mother from church had "started going to bars" and feel sorry for her children, used to believe that she had abandoned her family and gone off the deep end.  I used to wonder if my friend had had an affair because I wasn't privy to the pain in her marriage and couldn't think of another reason her life would be unraveling in such a fashion.  

Shame on me.  

Ironically, it wasn't until I had shame heaped on me that I could see through these lenses.  It wasn't until I required grace for myself that I was able to see how stingy I had been with grace for others.  I now find that my ministry is to help fellow women shake off this mantle of shame that we wear when we've been divorced.  The shame runs deep.  It can be pervasive.  It can make us feel guilty to find happiness.  It can whisper to us again and again that we are lesser, unworthy, forever unclean, undeserving of a seat at the table.  But that is not the voice of Truth.  The truth is that we are more than our marriages, more than the sum of our failures, more than the failure of our marriages.  Divorce cannot define us, just as no crisis can become central to who we are.

Jen Hatmaker says, in her book Of Mess and Moxie, "I cannot think of a greater burden than imagining God's perpetual disappointment."  I stopped mid-paragraph when I read that so that I could write this.  Because that sentence is the essence of the shame that comes with divorce.  It's the gnawing question - Is God disappointed in me? - that feels confirmed when well-meaning friends tell you to think of your children.  And it is the question that is quieted and exposed as a lie when friends invite you into their homes and love on you.

Women, let's be better to one another.  Let's be the ones who leave the toilet paper and goat cheese.

Red Sea Road

Growing up, one of my favorite stories from the Bible was that of the Israelites being led out of Egypt.  In high school, I would lay in bed at night and recount the stories of God's faithfulness to his people to reassure myself when things seemed impossible.  I think it's important to continually remind one another of the ways in which God has been faithful.  For that reason, I'd like to share this story with you...

.............................................................................................................

When I was 36, I found my life crumbling around me.  I had spent nearly half of my life pouring my whole self into a marriage that was now ending.  This was clearly not in my plan.  I was devastated that my children would be children of divorce, heartbroken to be relegated to what felt like a fragmented family.  Our pastor at church often spoke of shalom - the Jewish concept of peace and wholeness.  I wanted to believe that shalom was possible for me, but I couldn't see a way forward, couldn't muster the faith to envision a future that would bring shalom to myself and my children.  During that very difficult season, I pictured myself on a lazy river, being carried along by the love and support of the friends and family who gathered around me.  These people were the hands and feet of Christ to me when I desperately needed God to take a tangible form in my life.  It is no small thing to be well loved during difficult seasons.

Several months later, one friend who always seemed to know just what I needed sent me a song and reminded me yet again that she was praying for me and confident that good things were coming my way.  The song was Red Sea Road by Ellie Holcomb.  As I listened to the lyrics that told the familiar story of God's faithfulness, I sat on my bathroom floor wracked with sobs.  It touched a place deep inside of me that I recognized as hope.  I hadn't dared to hope in quite a while, too scared that I would be let down again.  I was afraid to trust God fully, because I still couldn't believe that shalom was possible for me.  I decided that this song would be the theme song of this season of my life.  The waiting and hoping season.

We will sing to our souls, we won't bury our hope
Where he leads us to go, there's a Red Sea Road
When we can't see the way, he will part the waves
And we'll never walk alone down a Red Sea Road

Two weeks later, I met the man I will soon marry.  A girlfriend and I were at a concert for galentines and asked to sit next to him so we could share his heater.  He had a long beard.  He was a drummer with a band out of Nashville I had never heard of - Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors.  I asked if Drew was any relation to Ellie Holcomb, and he told me they were husband and wife.  He sometimes played for Ellie.  I wasn't trying to date anyone, he was moving away to Nashville.  I didn't think anything would come of this chance meeting under a heater.  My friend and I closed the place down talking to this friendly man with a long beard.  Before we left, we all exchanged numbers so we could try to hang out again before he moved to Nashville.

Jonathan and I ended up hanging out the next day, and the next, and the next.  We were instant friends, spending hours talking about all of the most important things in life.  Complete honesty came easily, in part because we both knew we couldn't have a real relationship with his impending move, and in part because Jonathan is nothing if not genuine.  He played a women's retreat with Ellie and brought me a signed copy of her Red Sea Road album.  He eventually met my children, introduced as "Mama's friend who plays the drums and is moving to Nashville."  I fell in love with Jonathan quite by accident and very quickly.  My children took to him just as swiftly, leaning into his trustworthy kindness.  I couldn't see a way forward for us.  I prayed we would find a Red Sea Road.

Fast forward through several months of spending time with friends and family and more honest conversations than I've ever had in my life.  I drove to pick Jonathan up from a show so that we could travel to the next show over my Thanksgiving break.  When I arrived, I finally got to meet Ellie!  She and their children were touring with Drew for the end of the Willie Nelson tour.  It was so special to meet the woman who sang the song that restored my hope in a future I couldn't yet imagine.

A couple of days later, Jonathan and I had dinner at an amazing restaurant in San Antonio.  We moved to the patio for dessert and coffee and were seated right next to a heater.  And, as it turned out, right on the other side of the window from Drew and Ellie, who happened to be having dinner at the same restaurant.  After ordering the only gluten free dessert on the menu (which I later learned was put there especially for me by the chef upon request from Jonathan!), Jonathan took a knee and proposed with my grandmother's ring.  It could not have been more wonderful.  While I hugged him and cried, the Holcombs came out to congratulate us (they even surprised us by picking up the check on the way out!).  That part wasn't planned like all of the other perfect details Jonathan had put in place for that special evening, but having Ellie there to witness the waters parting for me was the perfect bookend to the story.

It was a fairly tale night after what has felt like fairy tale romance.  This fairy tale is a little unorthodox, as the princess in this story already has three little heirs in tow.  It's not simple or easy to create a new family out of the ashes of a former family.  But that's what has happened before my very eyes.  I have found my shalom.  And while I no longer believe in fairy tales where things are as simple as "happily ever after," I do believe in a God who makes a way where there was no way.  Soon, I will walk down the aisle to the love of my life.  And that aisle will be my Red Sea Road.

Ready As You Go

Hands-down, my favorite movie scene of all time is the above scene from Nanny McPhee.  This scene makes me cry every time.  I sob.  If you haven't seen it, this scene is an impromptu wedding between two people who finally admitted to themselves - and to each other - that they were in love. The last-minute bride begins her walk down the aisle dressed in her scullery maid uniform.  She turns to Nanny McPhee at her side and says, "I don't look much like a bride, do I?"  Nanny McPhee replies, "You will."

Suddenly, the snow that has just begun - in August - covers Evangeline in a gown and veil as white as, well, snow.  She is transformed as she walks toward her love.  It is absolutely magical.

I love this scene for many reasons, but here is why this scene makes me cry every time.

1) Everything is set right in this moment.  Being someone who loves happy endings, I am always overcome with emotion when I see things made right.  In Frozen, when Elsa realizes that love will thaw the never-ending winter that's settled over Arendelle.  In Sense and Sensibility, when Elinor learns that Edward is not married and bursts into tears of relief and joy.  Every time that love is realized, that those who didn't feel safe finally find safety - that moment when you realize the good guy is going to win and that truth and justice will have the last word - I rejoice.  We all do.  This is what we all long for, isn't it?

2) It is TRUE.  This scene - more than any scene I can think of - professes something that I believe to be true about life.  That truth is, no one has to be ready to start walking towards her dreams; to take the risk his heart is calling him to take; to listen to the small, still voice inside herself and begin walking in the direction that voice is urging her to go.  We don't have to be ready before we start. We will be made ready as we go.  We will be transformed into our bravest, most beautiful selves as we walk in the direction of our dreams.  We see this narrative played out countless times because it's true. You won't find a story in the Bible where God calls someone who feels up to the task.  You won't find a hero on a "hero's journey" who begins that journey with full confidence that victory lies ahead.  If you did, that person would cease to be a hero.  I love it about God and about life that all we have to do is keep showing up, keep walking, keep pressing on toward truth and love and justice even when - especially when - we don't feel up to the task.  What could be more hopeful than that?  We are being transformed into who we were always meant to be.

If you don't feel ready to go where your heart is leading you, just keep walking.  You will.

Washed Ashore

"Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage"
- Brené Brown

A few years back, we were on a beach vacation in Florida.  One morning I got the girls out of bed early and took them down to the beach to watch the sunrise in our pajamas.  I brought along a few bagels for breakfast and an empty pickle jar I had saved for the occasion.  We watched the ball of fire rise up from the water as we ate our bagels on the cool sand.  After the sun was up, we took the pickle jar I brought and knelt in the sand together.  I talked to the girls about the times in the Bible when something significant happened and people built altars to mark the significance of what had taken place there.  I told them that our pickle jar was to become an altar to mark the sunrise we had shared together on the beach.  We scooped up sand by the handful and made wishes as it ran between our fingers into the jar.  Then we searched for shells to place on top of the sand so we could take the memory home with us.  

As my daughters excitedly found shells for our altar, I found myself silently critiquing their selection.  I had hoped for the most beautiful shells we could find, as I planned to transfer the sand and shells to a vase to display on our mantle.  But instead, the girls brought me fragments of shells, misshapen shells.  To my dismay, my initial reaction was disappointment.  As I held out the pickle jar to collect their treasures, I realized that the problem lay within me, that my definition of beauty needed altering.  I let out a sigh as I let go of my idea of perfection and chose to instead embrace the perfection of the moment.  

Here is the shell that I found for our altar.

I laughed aloud when I found it, envisioning a youth group activity on the beach in which people write things on shells and cast them into the ocean to be rid of them.  

But here's what we know about the ocean - everything washes ashore eventually.  

I reveled in the irony of a shell that said, "Weakness."  Isn't this just like us?  Don't we, in so many ways, hurl into the ocean things that we find unacceptable, parts of ourselves of which we are ashamed, memories we'd just as soon forget, decisions we regret, things of which we wish to be free - only to look down and see those things washed up amidst the seaweed and the broken bottle pieces, once again laying at our feet? Don't we try to adorn our mantles with vases containing picture perfect shells rather than fragments?  Don't we try to seek perfection, desperately searching for things that meet our definition of beauty?

For a very long time, I tried to hurl my weaknesses into the sea, far enough that they would never wash ashore.  I tried to present only "perfect" shells to the world, until I felt like a shell of my former self.  I am done with that now.  Now I am into truth-telling.  I am into accepting shell fragments from the ones that I love, finding them perfectly imperfect and beautiful just as they are.  I am into collecting the parts of myself that would wash ashore anyway and displaying them in jars instead of casting them into the ocean.  

I think what it is is vulnerability.  Brené Brown says that is our most accurate measure of courage.  To me, it just feels like freedom.

Unraveling

I am sitting in a room lit only by the lights of the Christmas tree, eating Halloween candy.  What I should be doing is cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, and prepping for the week.  What I need to be doing is writing.  My soul breathes best when I'm writing, and breathing always comes first.  So here I sit.

There is an angel smiling at me from the tree, her arms outstretched in joyful surrender.  She is one of many ornaments that have shown up on my doorstep over the past few weeks, part of the outpouring of love I have received as I enter into this unique Advent season.  As I await my first childless Christmas since becoming a mother.  I look at the smiling angel and choke back a sob.  I think of my favorite line from Love Actually, "At Christmas, you tell the truth."

So here is my truth this Christmas:  I am unraveling.

I have spent the weekend in full-on-celebration mode, cramming every tradition and holiday event I could muster into my last weekend with the children before saying goodbye to them for two whole weeks.  We all piled into my bed on Friday night, arranged like straws in a game of pick-up sticks -   which is to say, not arranged at all -  all pillows and arms and legs and blankets and love.  We snuggled in front of Christmas shows with all three children piled onto my lap like puppies in pajamas.  We got takeout so I could snuggle instead of stand at the stove top.  We sang and danced and went to concerts and gathered with friends and went to church and saw Santa's Village.  We ate donuts and reindeer-shaped sugar cookies and endured the pure exhaustion of a three-year-old twice deprived of a nap.  It was all of the things.  It was magical and musical and tiring and tedious and wild and wonderful.

As I served my children one final snack before bed, my daughter crawled into my lap and said, "I don't really want gifts for Christmas.  The best gift of all is just being together.  For Christmas, I just want to be with you."  And that's when I felt it again - the unraveling.  I sat choking back tears, knowing that neither Santa nor baby Jesus can grant her that wish this year.  Knowing that she and I want the same thing for Christmas.  Knowing that it's all going to be okay, but it's also going to hurt like hell.

I want you to know that I am okay with the unraveling.

It seems that God does God's best work with people that have come unraveled.  I think unraveled people make the best raw material.  And here's the thing.  In the midst of the unraveling, there you are.  Here you come, your best thread in hand, stitching me back together again.  Here you come with your cards and your Christmas gifts, your generosity and your joy, your treasures and your time.  I can feel you stitching me back together, re-knitting the very fabric of my life.  And I find that I am better for having unraveled.  I am stronger, I am more beautiful, I am more real - and it's because I am fully me, and mixed in with the me is the fully you.  We are meant to live in community, lending each other thread, stitching one another back together, mending the tears and wiping the tears and spending the time and showing up over and over again until we all look like the best-loved patchwork quilts.

Thank you to those of you who have witnessed my unraveling, you who have come to my rescue in the most thoughtful and precious of ways.  I am so honored to have your lives woven in with mine. Just thinking of you, I can smile back at the angel on the tree, can take a deep breath in and lift my own arms in joyful surrender.

Life is Not a Contest: A Letter to My Children and to Myself

Precious ones,

A new school year is upon us.  It’s a big one - new schools for all of you, Kindergarten for one of you, full-time preschool for another.  A new job for me.  We will be seeing a lot less of each other as we spend our days at our schools and jobs, but that’s a letter for another day.  Today I want to share with you (and remind myself of) something that will change your life if you’ll let it.  As you advance through your school careers, you’re going to be faced with numerous measuring sticks.  There will be grades - and eventually ranks based on those grades.  There will be standardized tests.  There will be passing and failing.  There will be tryouts for teams that not everyone will get to join. There will be numbers assigned to you, meant to measure your worth in some arbitrary way.  There will be contests with winners and losers.

There will be other contests as well, but people won’t speak of those.  Beauty contests.  Contests for friendships and popularity.  Comparisons - who has the most money, the coolest toys and latest gadgets, the most fashionable clothes, the best summer vacations, the most exciting plans for the weekend.  Who is the fastest, the fittest, the best in social situations, the funniest.  Who fits in and who doesn’t.  Contests everywhere you look.  No one will mention these and no ribbons or medals will be awarded, but you’ll feel it just the same.  

Here’s the grand secret, sweet children.  Life is not a contest.  It’s just not.  No one else has to lose in order for you to win.  No one has to be “out” in order for you to be “in.” There is enough for everyone.  There is plenty for everyone, and there is plenty for you.  You will NEVER have to take something from someone else in order to have it for yourself.  That’s just not the truth, no matter what the world will try to tell you.  You don’t need to be the prettiest or the smartest, the fastest or the funniest - and neither does anyone else.  This is a myth - to chase after it would be to spend your life searching for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, missing everything along the way.  There is enough beauty to be found in everyone if you will see people for who they are.  There are enough ideas if you will generously listen to those of others and share yours freely. You don’t need to hold on too tightly to anything.  Nothing worth keeping can ever be taken from you.  So lower your fists and open your hands.  Open your hearts.  

You don’t need to be the best.  The only thing you need to be the best at is being fully yourself, and guess what?  No one is competing against you for that job.  It is rightfully yours and always will be.  Learn to relax into that.  You are becoming who you will be, and you already are who you will be.  And who you are is ENOUGH.  You don’t have to strive or compete.  This is not a contest.

You will meet people along the way who are striving with every fiber of their being.  You will know them because there will be no peace in their faces or joy in their eyes.  You will see the struggle on them, for it is a heavy burden they carry.  They will see you as a competitor at best, an enemy at worst.  It’s okay.  These people are not bad people. They just believe the lie that life is a contest, that there is a limited amount goodness in this world and that they have to fight to get their fair share. They are searching relentlessly for a pot of gold that doesn’t exist.

Here’s how you can show grace to those who are striving and struggling - stand in the fullness of grace and truth that belongs to you.  Stand with your hands and hearts open.  REFUSE to join this race with no finish line.  Stand in the eye of the storm and invite others to enter in with you.  Become a place of peace for others by being at peace with yourself.  Someone may see you in all of your beautiful uniqueness - in all of your YOUness - and put down their fists as well.  Someone may cease to fight against you and instead come alongside you.  Others will continue to compete, and that’s okay.  Because you are not in this contest.

Life is a team sport, and we’re all on the same team.  And as soon as we realize that, we have already won.  Let’s get this victory party started!

Always on your team,

Mama

In Transition

I stood leaning over the hospital bed and started to sob.  

It was my third time to give birth, and my first time to do so without the support of a doula or my mother, who had stayed at the house to keep the girls.  It was a busy night for the midwife, with several women giving birth at once - I had gotten the last delivery room when I arrived that afternoon - and the nurse would only pop in periodically to see how things were progressing.  My second child arrived 45 minutes after I got to the hospital, so I was told any subsequent births would be similarly swift.  Yet.  Hours after labor had begun in earnest, the contractions kept coming like crashing waves but I had no indication that the end was in sight.  I was playing a little game with myself to try to pass the time.  I'd look at the clock and think to myself, "Okay.  This baby will be here in two hours.  By ten o'clock you will meet your son.  You've got this."  And then at ten, I would repeat this promise to myself.  "By noon.  He'll be here by noon."  (Some proponents of natural childbirth say that it's not really pain you are experiencing during childbirth, and that you must simply reframe it in your mind.  Isn't that precious?)  I began to cry, uncertain of how much longer I could withstand the pain without the arrival of my favorite part of the labor process - the part when I get to push.  (Again, some people claim that no pushing is necessary and that you can simply "breathe the baby down."  I guess my mind isn't strong enough for this.)  The part when it doesn't feel like I'm on a roller coaster of pain because there is finally a modicum of control, an active participation on my part.  But that part hadn't arrived yet, and so I cried.

My husband, who stood behind me rubbing my back, said, almost under his breath, "You're crying.  You must be in transition.  You always cry when you're in transition."

His words were like a second wind for me.  Aha!  I'm in transition.  The most intense part of the birthing process, the part that comes right before the pushing, the part that means, this baby is actually coming.  Of all of the wonderful ways he supported me through that process, his recognition that I was in transition was by far the most helpful.  I was too deep in the middle of it to recognize it for myself, but because he had been with me each time, he knew what was happening.  There was a light at the end of the tunnel.  There was hope and renewed strength, there was energy.  And on the other side of the pain, there was a beautiful birth.

Fast forward a couple of years to an empty house, the last of the boxes loaded on the moving truck, the final moments in the place we had called home for the past two years.  The only home my son had ever known.  The place my girls had learned to swing with their feet reaching toward the sky, the place my oldest had started Kindergarten, the place we had carved out friendships in a new town for the first time. The place we had made countless memories as a family as we picked strawberries and hiked at Radnor Lake and returned to the family-owned pumpkin patch for the fall festivities.  The place with the changing seasons and rolling hills and so much beauty you could burst.  Home.  And we were leaving it.  

I did what I always do when we move out of a house.  I went from room to room, gathering up the memories that took place in each, treasuring them up in my heart, awash in gratitude for the time spent in that place.  Thankful.  And I cried.  My children climbed up in my lap as I sat sobbing on the floor in my son's room, looking out the window for the last time.  And it occurred to me - you're in transition.

Transition.  The most intense part, the most challenging part.  The part that brings you to your knees and wracks your body with sobs.  The part that happens right before you give birth to something beautiful.

And really, so much of our lives are spent in transition.  We move, we get married, we get divorced, we have children, we make new friends, we say goodbye to old friends, we begin a new job, we start a new school.  Old ways of thinking about God, of how we see the world, are pulled out from under us like a rug, giving birth to new theologies and fresh perspectives.  We work to give up bad habits and addictions, we try again and again to begin anew.  We grow up.  We try to figure out our place in this brutal, beautiful world.  New things are painful.  Or rather, letting go of the old and familiar things is painful.  The process of being in transition, the places where we haven't yet given birth and the pain is crashing down in seemingly unending waves.  

I think the best thing we can do for one another is to speak truth to the process, to recognize the pain of another during their time of transition, to recognize the transition itself when those around us are too blinded by the pain to see it for what it is.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, there is something beyond the pain you feel in this moment, there is something beautiful waiting to be born.  Let us hold up a candle in the darkness.  Let us see the tears of another and lovingly reassure them - I know why you're crying.  You're in transition.