People don't like hard. They don't want to be involved in messy, and they certainly don't want to feel uncomfortable.
That has been a difficult reality for me to learn over the past year and a half. When our lives got hard, we saw too many people walk away. People we thought would be there day in and day out to pull us through, instead chose to walk to more comfortable ground where there were less tears, less heartache, and certainly no talk about death.
Some of those people have been watching; waiting until it seems like the air has cleared and they wont have to see any pain when they talk to us. These "waiters in the wings" have assumed that it must have been long enough now. This precious new baby we have welcomed into our lives has surely healed all our pain and enabled us to move into the future without talking about the past.
Well, oops, sorry to burst that bubble.
Hard is not fun. Hard is not pretty. It's not something any of us would choose, but it is real and immutable and a big part of what makes us who we become. The hard things we go through don't magically fade away after a given amount of time. The hard things become part of our story, and shape how we respond in the future.
Reluctantly, we have let it in. We have leaned into it, wrestled with it, and learned how to push on when we don't know how.
The people who don't want to know hard exists, won't want to commune with us, but the ones who are brave enough to embrace it, might just be blessed by some of the things it has changed in us.
Are you brave enough to let us in?
Please leave me a comment; it lets me know you're listening!
I'm brave enough. You don't scare me! :D
ReplyDeleteWith ALL my HEART! I've seen my friends and family walk away, too. How it breaks the heart! I reach out sometimes, but I think they only respond out of guilt for not staying close to me. Friends I've had for 20+ years. It hurts! And, it's tough to let go of them. I think, "they're waiting for me to say something, to ask them, how they are, or to say let's get together." I realize everyone goes on with their lives, even though mine just went, and is going, through a terrible loss and heartbreak.
ReplyDeleteHannah, I'm with you. I love you guys! <3
The church I go to is all about this concept. When our pastor "Fell from Grace" 8 years ago, instead of restoring him, covering him, helping him in his family, the church he was a part of isolated him and told him to move out of state...because the same people didn't want to be tarnished by his sin or face "the hard". I think God is calling us to 'face the hard' and jump in and go through the hard times with people. That is REAL. That is LIFE. That is the true gospel and I hope people will start waking up to this fact in all areas of life. We love learning from what you've been through, just even reading your blogs. We support you in all of the emotions...especially the RAW ones! Wendy S
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