Making Peace with Weakness
notes on tenderness in pregnancy + in life
I first met my daughter while sorting through the ashes of betrayal and loss.
In the disorientation came a bright gift, small but significant. She entered my life fiercely, softening the sharp corners of my heart.
I carry a new presence in my journey through a devastated world: this place so often a shell of what it should be.
Only one person can bring that emptiness to life.
And I need His life-breath daily––when old friends like depression and OCD climb out of their coffins to embrace me. Companions I did not ask for, who I resent because I fear what they say about my worth.
I’m tired of pretense. I’m weary of pretending to be stronger than I am.
The paradox of pregnancy is immense power coexists with tender vulnerability. As my child grows, I feel my whole self expanding in wild and mysterious ways.
Perhaps the worst and best experiences of life do this. Taking us beyond where we thought we could go, making us more than we thought we could be.
How are we so much weaker than we realize and so much stronger than we know?
If I make peace with my weakness, it will be my friend.
If I’m unwilling to walk in shame for how my finite mind and heart sometimes work tirelessly against me, I will be free.
If I lay aside the armor of accomplishment and anger, I will find peace.
I still carry this frail form, these dry bones. But I know the One who stands quietly near, restoring me by grace when I have lost all my strength.
I’m not the only one sifting through past pain and future terrors. I’m small and significant too, made glorious by the life He breathes into me. Even when I’d rather make my home in darkness.
I am uncertain how I will walk with my unwanted companions, and whether they’ll ever slink back into the quiet corners of my soul.
But life stirs in my womb, a reminder that though I am limping, I’m moving onward. And I am not alone.
Oof, there’s so much in there.