I. Am. Brave.

 

I. Am. Brave.

I say those words to myself over and over again as I clean out my dead husband's garage and tool boxes and old work truck.

I say them as tears fall, creating tracks down my face as they mix with the dirt and grease that have somehow found their way to my cheeks. 

I whisper them as I sit in a freezing cold garage after hours of work that seem to not make a dent in reshaping John's old haven into something usable for the widow that I am now. 

I sob them as I throw away another treasure, another memory...another moment lost forever. Just things...they're just things. But...sometimes "things" are all the tangibleness that's left after a 13 year marriage dissolves into tragedy.

I. Am. Brave.

I say those words as I sit at my kitchen table and homeschool my teenage daughter. Even though I never wanted to homeschool her. Even though I thought that I just didn't have the mental capacity to take on one more hard thing these days. 

I say it as she storms off in tears and I'm left to somehow figure out how to love her and teach her and discipline her and grow her all at once. Because I know what's best for her. Me, her mother. The woman who cares for her the most in the world and knows her the very best.

I cry it in the middle of the night when our relationship feels more broken and hurtful than it should be. After she's reminded me that I'm NOT her favorite person. That I am NOT loving her well. That I am NOT her mother. 

I say it as I pinch pennies to pay for an adoption that we so desperately want and that she so desperately needs. Because I promised to choose her for forever. Because she's never had anyone choose her for forever. Even if I am a poor imitation of a perfect mother, I still AM one. Still hers. Choosing her proves that. And if we, as Christians, are not called to choose the unchosen...then we have missed the heart of the gospel.

I. Am. Brave.

I say those words as a man who's promised me the world turns out to be so much less than he claimed. As I remind myself that settling for someone who doesn't love Jesus the way *I* need a partner to, will surely lead to much more brokenness than I could ever possibly want to deal with. 

I say it as people remind me that I'm "too much" and "not enough" all at once. Remembering that once upon time there *was* a man who thought I was everything...and all of it enough. And sacrificing a life well-lived for the absence of loneliness is not a calling on my heart. 

I whisper them to myself as I continue to make a life for myself and for my daughter in the absence of a man who cares for either of us. Husbandless and fatherless...a brutal calling for those of us asked to carry such burdens. But I want to do it well...

I. Am. Brave.

I say those words to my daughter and I ask her to repeat them back to me.

Breathe in and breathe out and say it with me...

I. Am. Brave.

Not because we are faultless. Not because we are not afraid. Not because we do not cry. Not because we do not feel every single scar from the wounds that have brought us here.

I. Am. Brave.

Because I am loved.

Because I have a Savior.

Because I am redeemed.

Because, even though this moment matters, life is so much more than this moment. 

Say it with me...

I. Am. Brave.

Because I choose to be...and because sometimes, there is just no other choice.