let it do what it came to do.

If no one has told you yet I’m breaking the news…consider this information a gift…

Life will bring you pain.

Isn’t it fantastic! You don’t have to wonder anymore! You don’t have to wonder if you’re going to escape life’s blows!!! You’re NOT! You ARE going to get hit…square between the eyes…at some point…with heartache and loss and pain and all that jazz…

There will be things that happen that you can’t Zig Ziglar your way out of…there will not be a reserve of positive thoughts or fluffy quotes to make the hurt go away or speed the recovery.

It will hurt until it doesn’t hurt anymore and you have to let it do what it came to do…

Let the pain work itself out to completion and not a minute sooner. No premature problem solving will work. If you embrace it, pain will grow you in ways that nothing else can…it will press and squish and sift you into the most raw version of yourself, and while doing so take you back to who you were before you thought you could only survive the pretty.

Now…Let’s talk about the ones who stick around when it’s ugly.

If you’ve ever wondered who your true friends are…the through thick and thin comrades who are not just here for the good news and the promotions and the new house and the nice vacations and the wine and cheese parties…well…now you’ll know.  When you have nothing to offer but you and all your mess and they still show up…

Say hello to your people. 

I drive a 2010 Kia Forte.  I am a stay at home grandma with remaining debt from my business collapse of 2013 and on top of it…I am still grieving! Who wants to be friends with THAT?

She does. And he does. And they do…

My people. My tribe. The ones who walk through the ugly and the valley and ask for nothing…the ones who stick around when some days I have nothing more to offer than the breath in my lungs.

 

It is okay to suck at life.

It is okay to suck in spite of your belief in God…and it’s okay to struggle with hope in spite of your hope that Jesus will show up.  So what if your shelves and bedside tables are dripping with best selling books on mental and emotional well being?! It’s still sucking over here… Oh, let us not forget how you’ve listened and re-listened to and practically memorized THAT podcast from THAT pastor that told you everything will be alright and we just need to speak life and joy because life and death are in the tongue…{Sticks out tongue and flips off a puppy} Hey Google…play Hillsong United. Hey Google…turn it up! Love this song…but life still sucks.

Pain is your companion until it’s not…and your companions through the pain are your people.

 

Things to know when your friends are in the valley:

1. Pain is not contagious.
2. You don’t have to say anything.
3. Don’t ask a lot of questions. They honestly don’t know the answers. And even if, the answers are not needed in order for you to just be there.
4. Don’t be a nosey, busy body friend…Don’t text for the details of a situation then disappear until you’re bored or just curious again.
5. Don’t ask intimate concerning questions via social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram…for the love.
6. Let them say F*&@$. Let them scream it at the top of their lungs if it helps.
7. Let them be in a good mood without wondering HOW they can be in a good mood “considering everything that’s happened”.
8. Don’t be offended by their need for solitude and time.
9. Don’t let them remain in solitude.
10. Call and say, “I’m going to pray with you now…you don’t have to say anything and your tears can’t run me off. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”

I love my Claire. Claire is not immune to unexpected sorrow and she does not let her people walk alone. She will bother you until you give in and let her in. She will call you out of solitude and woo you with some soup and wine. She has been a shining example of what to be when our loved ones hurt. And she knows this is it…this is all I’ve got right now…an old car, a grandbaby on my hip and some sadness that is not going anywhere anytime soon…HOWEVER, she wants me around and what that says to me is it’s nothing more than ME she wants in her life. Readers…this is how we must love our friends.

You’ve heard me say time and time again that MY MESS IS MY MUSE …but I want you to know this one too…MY PAIN HAS BEEN MY PROFESSOR. A professor of life experience that sneaks in the room and says very little…He sits in his chair looking borderline arrogant…as if he knows something I don’t.  He does. He hands me something and watches me cuss and cry and act like I’m above this lesson. Remember those professors? The ones who ticked you off because of their abysmal requirements and immediately you were NOT a fan. And you were not alone. Some even dropped the course and found something easier. But you remained, though not without contempt…and over the course of the school year you start to get it…and the things they were teaching you tend to merge and mesh with other classes you’re taking and oddly enough…all your grades go up?!

Praise God…all my grades are going up.