Tough Love

So hard. Harder than most recognize. That’s what I’ve discovered on this journey. It’s pretty cliché. Everyone knows tough love is what your job is as a parent. When your child screws up, you give tough love, and they fix. Right??

Discipline. Tough Love. I’ve tried and tried to figure out this week what tough love even means. I mean, really. It’s not the concept of love I struggle with. It’s the tough part.

Mostly because I’m anything but tough. I love from a broken place. Even when I say no to the requests more than two dozen times in a row. And, then the one time I give in. It’s not tough love. Quickly, it becomes a disaster and it’s my fault. After that I walk around paralyzed from the grieving my heart does for days. Asking myself over and over, why didn’t I give tough love. Why can’t I just be strong enough to consistently provide it.

If only I could. It would all be fixed.

Well, that’s what people think anyway.

Grief.

Grief is defined as a multifaceted response to loss. Especially associated with the death of a loved one. There are several stages of grief. I won’t go into them because they’re not all that important. They are. Just not for this blog. I guess we can talk about them another day.

Because this is what I’ve experienced over the last several months. Maybe even years. Honestly, I’ve lost track.

What about when you haven’t experienced the death of a loved one. Instead they’re a shell of who they once were. Nearly unrecognizable. Until you see a glimpse of them. Just as quick as you see the glimmer of who you know them to be, it’s gone. Seconds.

I’ve discovered, painfully so, that grief is overwhelming. And a loss worthy of grieving is so much more than a death. Not greater than. Simply that death isn’t the only loss that triggers all the stages and facets of grieving.

I grieve a few things specifically. A lot of things actually. But a few I’ll share in hopes that you can relate and be blessed.

I grieve the opportunity to make it different. So very different.

I grieve the fact that I’m not stronger. That I wear down and give in. To which I always rapidly regret. Because it hurts worse.

I grieve that I don’t have the ability to fully acknowledge the depth of the grief. Because I don’t know what happens next. If I really go there, can I come back?

The logical side of me is pretty convinced that yes, I come back. We heal. Our ashes become beauty. His word tells us so. And I know it to be true.

It’s the emotion of it all I struggle with the most.

In this season, there is grieving, but that’s not the end of the story.

Over the course of the past few days, I shook a little inside, held my breath, and fiercely wiped away tears that kept sneaking out. With all the determination I could muster, I made it through the day.

Because that’s about what I did. Made it through the day. Slightly paralyzed.

“In my weakness, He is strong”

I kept reminding myself that in my weakness, He is strong.

And, it’s okay to be weak.

It’s really okay to be weak. This junk is real. And it hurts for real. I’m not meant to be strong enough to carry the pain of it all by myself. All of this unrealistic expectation hurts almost as much as the grieving.

Some say it takes strength. To get up and make it through the day. Despite the pain associated with whatever loss you’re grieving. It takes strength to paint your big girl face on and head out into the world. I guess to some degree it does.

But I think it takes more strength to say you’re not okay. To cry. More strength to subdue the human will that refuses to let you be totally and completely vulnerable so that he can fill the void with his strength, peace, joy, and healing.

Because that’s the other part we grieve. The thought of healing. If we heal does that mean we don’t love anymore. That we’ve given up. That we’ve let go. No. It doesn’t.

It’s easier to push back the hurt. Bury it a little deeper. Keep it hidden. Controlled.

The rest of the story…

I want to remind each of you and myself today. He wants all of our deepest and most intimate broken pieces. The ones we don’t dare share with anyone else. All the broken pieces we can’t even bare the thought of acknowledging are there. That’s how he begins to paint the masterpiece of our lives. He gets all the broken pieces together and seals the cracks. And then it’s better than new. Restored. Priceless.

We have to be willing to be vulnerable fully trusting and knowing that God has our chaotic messy grieving lives in the palm of his loving hands. Just when I think I’ve let him have it all, I find another fractured piece yet to be given.

I want to encourage you today. Give him your brokenness. Let him make you whole.

Be blessed. Many prayers. Much love.

Bobbie