Just Gave Me A Chance

 

I never realized how highly I thought of myself before John died. How secure I was in who I was.

Being happily married for so long and having healthy relationships with God, my family, and my friends made me feel like I was something truly special. John told me often how beautiful and attractive he found me. But who I was, at my core, that's what was really special...when you got me to open up, when you allowed me to shine, when you just gave me a chance.

Living in a world without John has been an eye opening experience. Being on my own in every aspect of life is something I was never prepared for. There are just so many people I meet in so many different scenarios and sometimes it all feels so overwhelming.

What if they don't give me a chance?

What if I don't actually shine anymore?

What if trauma has dulled me?

What if grief has changed me to my very core?

More and more I am learning how I am different now. I used to live life without walls and used to love so deeply and so openly. Now I just don't have that bravery anymore. I'm constantly evaluating the cost of vulnerability, the cost of investing in someone else, the cost of giving pieces of my heart away...because I know, so very intimately, how it feels when that debt is called in. 

Do I still shine?

Am I still something special?

Am I still beautiful and attractive?

Am I still worth the chance?

I have finally been asking people for a chance. And I think I am seeing shades of myself that had been hidden before. 

Who am I to be asking for a chance? 

Who are they to deny me one?

Why does it even matter?

If no one sees who I really am...am I still something special?

I didn't intentionally start hiding myself away. It happened little by little. I started losing faith in who I was and stopped trusting that people could truly see me. I stopped believing that who I am is enough for everyone...because who I am is so very different than who I was. Who I became paid such a high cost in order to survive...do I even like who I've become? Do They? So many doubts...so many moments that seemed to reinforce the idea that I wasn't me anymore. So many reasons to hide away...

Maybe I was afraid that they would see that I had changed.

Maybe I was afraid that who I became just didn't shine as bright.

Maybe I didn't think they'd give me a chance.

Maybe I was too afraid to ask for one. 

I covered up this loss of identify with false bravado and forced experiences. Please, don't feel sorry for me, I was just trying to learn who I became in the midst of the greatest tragedy of my life. I fell apart with very few people and I shared intimately with even fewer. I was truly myself with almost no one. 

And then I blogged about it. Isn't that funny? I couldn't say it to your face...so I wrote it down. I would weep for the me I lost as I typed the words of grief and grace onto pages for everyone to read. 

So...maybe I didn't hide myself that far away...really I was just out of view. Waiting for another chance to embrace everything that trauma had forced me to become. 

I never wanted to find my worth in the people who gave me a chance or my lack of worth in the people who didn't. I never wanted to be scared of who I was or who I became. 

I simply wanted to be everything that I was and nothing that I wasn't.

So, I just gave me a chance...

And I think I still shine...just a little differently than I ever did before.

Because the me I was at my core...she's still the same.

The same broken sinner who was redeemed by a perfect Savior. 

And He's still the reason I shine.

Still the One who just gave me a chance....