Inspiration
At some point in life, most of us confront something devastating - illness, abandonment, loss, heartbreak. When our world falls apart (or feels like it will), how we choose to move through our grief and respond makes all the difference.
When I was in graduate school, I had to make a family genogram, a diagram that resembles a family tree but represents familial relationships. Straight lines between people equal healthy bonds; jagged or broken lines indicate difficult or cut off connections. The drawing I made revealed the painful secrets of my family history: divorce, death, and disownment; anger, abandonment, and aloneness.
My teacher returned the assignment with a comment: What will you do with all of this loss?
I almost cried, right there in class, but I accepted her question as a challenge. Could I make something positive out of my pain?
The answer was, and is, yes.
My mother’s death sent me into a tailspin. It also released me from the toxic relationship she had with her second husband and turned me into an athlete. My first marriage, which lasted less than two years, left me almost $30,000 in debt. Digging myself out of that hole with two jobs and a strict budget taught me fiscal responsibility and self-reliance. I live with chronic pain due to severe scoliosis, but managing it forces me to listen to my body, breathe deeply, slow down, and ask for help.
Don’t misunderstand, I haven’t welcomed these lessons, however, they prepared me to approach life knowing that I will endure, that my spirit is capable of overcoming, that pain shared, is pain divided, and that suffering drives me to find a better way.
As hard as it is to find the silver lining in our agony, I believe we come out the other side with hearts that are stronger for having been broken and stories that inspire others to climb out of the depths and see the light.