In assessing the past few months and years of my life and observing the lives of those around me—as I have a tendency to do—I’ve made some assessments. Bet you didn’t see that coming.
As overstated and cliche as it is to mention, everyone around us and among us is dealing the challenges, headaches, frustrations, broken hearts, just the variables of life. Inevitable yet trying. I’ve wondered if there’s a spreadsheet or definition that helps us categorize one challenge as a mere inconvenience and another as a serious trial.
I don’t know that there is a clear answer. Because one person’s trial, say a divorce or the death of a pet, is another’s blessing. Depends on the person and circumstances, not so much the event itself. A broken arm would devastate an Olympic swimmer, while a broken promise could debilitate a woman in love.
I’m no expert in trials. If you know me at all, you know I’m not glazing over the facts, I’m telling you the truth. But even though the issues I’ve waded through have never been much to write about, there’s a difference between the uncomfortable physical ones and others. Because the real challenges have always related to my heart.
I’ve never dealt with much physically compromising really (well, until maybe later today). I remember getting knocked down on the cement at daycare when I was maybe 11, roller skating when a heavy door swung open right into my soon-to-be-soft-and-blackened eye. I’ve had gum grafting on both sides of my mouth at the same time, wisdom teeth pulled, all sorts of orthodontia, given birth five times—one emergency c-section that seemed to take months to recover from and once to a 9 lb 2 oz baby with no epidural. I climbed over a fence at track practice only to have the barb at the top push its way through my upper thigh, leaving both me and my leg attached to the fence. That felt awesome. I spent a lot of my daycare days with pink eye and tonsillitis, an occasional strep throat. Like all of you I’ve had the flu, spent days shivering on the couch. I know what mastitis feels like, same as a lot of nursing moms. Hailing from Southern California, I’ve endured my share of sunburns and blistered shoulders, but not too much more than aches and an occasional pain for the most part.
What’s really distressed me have been the heartaches. And these are the trials I anticipate will continue to taunt me. My heart is more fragile than my body. More tested, more sensitive.
Jealousy throughout my school years. Relationships that could’ve been closer but were marred and stunted from my own insecurities. How I wish I could go back and wrap my arms around the girlfriends I was jealous of. I’d like to just start fresh and be their biggest supporters and cheerleaders, regardless of how they felt toward me. I know I could be a better friend these days. I’ve learned so much.
Feelings of inadequacy through these same years, not recognizing my gifts that were uniquely mine to develop and share but always surmising that I simply didn’t have anything to offer. How destructive and taxing to carry such an unnecessary burden.
My heart is still a little saddened over missed opportunities throughout the years to be a kinder daughter, a more engaged sister and mom, a more forgiving friend, a more nurturing wife. Admittedly yes, those holes do eventually fill, but the memories of what I left unsaid or undone are good reminders of what a pained heart feels like.
This isn’t a true confessions blog post, although wow, wouldn’t that be a list? Just a sampling of how tender our hearts can be. Even after all these years I can conjure up sad phases, cracked ego days, a million bruised heart hours and years. The other list in mighty short in comparison. Although maybe if I had been the athlete I always wanted to be I would have better stories for you.
I’m not by any stretch minimizing a chronic disease, a paralyzing accident, any of the myriad ways our bodies are compromised in large and small ways. Just that in the grand scheme of life here and later, these physical ailments will be healed completely. But what really hangs in the balance always goes back to our hearts. Will these physical set-backs make our hearts stronger or will they break us? Will our hearts become hardened and bitter or soft and tender? Our hearts don’t change just because we die. And so our job now is to perfect them, which is more difficult than any surgery or body cast, stretching us and humbling us like no physical therapy or wig can. Perfecting our heart means giving it away, accepting a larger, stronger, better version in return. So whether it’s exercised through devastating divorce or damaged digit, loss of love or losing locks, the trial isn’t what defines us, it’s how we use our hearts that refines us.
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