"Losing. Grieving. Mourning. Loving. Living."
One of my Instafriends Keilah gave a challenge this morning to list our blessings. Here’s what flowed from my heart:
Grateful for my life, the gift to love, the honor to write, the ability to be musical, the presence of people who love me, a future that’s crafted exactly for my story and a personal relationship with the one true and living God that keeps me on my toes with surprise and expectation each new day.
I’m thankful, living and growing still.
In the shock of grief, in the midst of death, in unfathomable loss and pain that makes your soul cringe just to get air you instinctively fight for normalcy.
And then at some point you realize the normal you want is no longer the normal you have.
And then you have a choice to make: to keep fighting for what has left you that you no longer have or to relent and surrender, accepting your powerlessness and with it the freedom and the healing to take hold of a new normal.
This is what I call the element of finding melodie in grieving, mourning, losing and learning how to love and live again.
The element of finding new music in your life and a new you.
I understand the language of grief and the vernacular of tears. I understand them both very well.
Today I’m wearing a little bit of my grandmother with me.
I like to wear a green necklace that belonged to her. A few days ago I cleaned out a small cloth purse and put the contents on my bed, which included jewelry from my grandmother.
Days after her death my family began the incredibly difficult task of going through her belongings and preparing for her funeral. I started opening her dresser drawers, and looking for things, what I didn’t know exactly, but I wanted to find something that was hers, something to make her feel and be closer to me even though she was so very far away.
I found priceless photos of me, my cousins, our mothers and our family. Photos from when we grandchildren were toddlers, little kids and teenagers. Pictures she kept and placed in safe places, pictures of her “Brount” (Brian), her “Mella” (me) and her “Jacob” (Jason). We were her babies, her heart, her promise of better years, deeper dreams and greater chances, these grandchildren of hers who would become something just simply AMAZING.
This green necklace belonged to her. To my Lena. I’ve worn it three times since she passed away. Once at Thanksgiving right after her death, once some months later and today. Wearing it makes me feel closer to her. And of course, I just love the color green.
A dear friend told me once that you can tell when the pain of losing a loved one to death doesn’t have the same grip of loss on you. It happens when you can look at their picture now and smile instead of crying. I feel that way about this green necklace. Remembering Lena still.
The excitement and joy of living in relationship with God is the gift of believing in him.
Being in relationship with him. Trusting him. Hoping in him. Having confidence in him. Knowing that he has made me, he loves me and he has my back no matter what.
If I try to foolishly and feebly control, run and bulldoze over him to run my life I always lose.
I lose the joy of seeing him meet my needs in his timing, in his way.
I lose the joy of sharing those moments of dependence with him.
I lose the excitement in beautifully believing in him.
I lose relationship with him.
I lose.
I don’t want to lose. I want to win. With God.
There are moments when you look at your body in the mirror and you say:
Hey, I look different.
It’s a moment when your head self connects with your eye self and everything changes. Something happens inside your soul and you recognize:
This is who I am and I am grateful for the me I am.
I am grateful for the me I am becoming.
I am grateful for the me I used to be, because she taught me things I needed to know, I needed to learn so I could grow.
Two weeks ago such a moment happened to me. Got dressed for work and decided to put on a new top and some basic black capris pants and get things moving. Clothes fit great. My natural hair was on fleek. I felt really good. I happened to glance in the mirror as I tied my shirt and I saw someone I knew and thought was really beautiful: Me.
I knew in my gut this was a moment to capture in a photo because I needed to see myself the way I truly was, not how I thought I was or who I thought I looked like in my mind. I’m engaged in a fitness and health journey that’s now six years in the making and over that time I’ve seen my body change, get stronger, and get leaner. But sometimes I still see the girl who was very much overweight and unhealthy. Photos gently remind me that girl isn’t here anymore.
I pulled out my phone, snapped a shot and did what all social media enthusiasts do: I posted it on my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Stellar social media woman I am.
In life we have the gift of living as our true authentic and beautiful selves. Living means we show up to our lives and we commit to being in them all the way.
Being true means we see the beauty in us and the deficits. We choose to grow and pursue healing and freedom so we can get the most mileage out of these bodies, these gifts and these snazzy personalities that have intentionally been placed in us.
Being authentic means we don’t hide. We don’t hide from who we are. We don’t hide from who we used to be. We choose to be real over being fake and we choose to live instead of almost living. We invite people into the gift of who we are authentically, intentionally and honestly so that incredible friendships and relationships can blossom out of us.
Being beautiful means we see ourselves for ourselves. Who we are right now, this minute, right here. Beauty isn’t perfection or the lack a little jiggle here and there. Beauty starts in the innermost, deepest parts of who we are and infiltrates out through our eyes, smiles, laughter, voices, personalities and so much more until the inner weaves itself indelibly to the outer.
The world often says the outer parts of people are beautiful. I believe that outer starts with the inner. That’s where the true roots for beauty lie, in the soul.
How do you see yourself?
How do you feel about living authentically?
What’s in your soul? Does beauty have a home there?