I’m no expert. I don’t have a degree in psychology, nor am I a life coach or the life of the party but I love connecting with women. I love listening to their stories, raw, tragic, and beautiful. A deep thread of strength runs in each one. I shared one such moment with a friend the other day when I had no idea what was really going on in her life, nor did she really know what was happening in mine.
From the outside life looked normal, typical of any American mom and wife as we exchanged waves in school pick up lane. But this moment was more than that, it was a chance to shed our coverings and be in our skin of motherhood. After we left that sweet spot of no pretenses mixed rich bold coffee, sugary sweet food (for the love of God, we women can connect over ANY carb-filled offerings), we hurried back to our crazy, messy lives.
I ran into another friend, we chatted and then parted ways, she went home to her family, I went to the gym since I’m training for a half marathon. My feet found a steady pace with my thoughts swirling. Sifting through shared secrets, unpacked pain, and naked souls–I realized we are each fighting to make sense of our lives. Strangely enough in the swirling, I found one common perpetrator. We as women don’t know why we are experiencing the pain, the self-doubt, and the messiness of what was supposed to be simple life lived. In each woman’s eyes, I see this nagging sense of self-doubt, that we don’t have what it takes. The loss of clarity over why we are hurting.
Breathing deep, my body pushed through another mile using the pain of a recent situation with my own daughter. Anger and failure ached in my heart as much as my muscles straining to keep pace. Overwhelmed and undone by this magnitude of brokenness in the lives of women I know and in my own, my soul wrestled with God.
Salty tears ran down my cheeks. Exhausted and hurting. I heard Him ever so gently say, “Wait. Wait on Me into tomorrow. I have the unknown in my hands.”
